negligence, and then into the vile slough of vice. Credit me, the
greatest safeguard to female chastity is sobriety of demeanour. I
beseech and direct that thou often call to mind the friendship which was
betwixt us; but I do not wish thee to mourn for me too much--an
injunction which, so far as it is in my power, I lay on all my friends,
since it might seem that by doing so they felt a jealousy of that blessed
condition in which I am about to be placed by death. I assure thee, my
dear, that if I had the option now of continuing in life or of completing
the voyage on which I have set out, I should find it very hard to choose.
Adieu, dear niece."

Mademoiselle d'Arsat, his stepdaughter, was next called. He said to her:
"Daughter, you stand in no great need of advice from me, insomuch as you
have a mother, whom I have ever found most sagacious, and entirely in
conformity with my own opinions and wishes, and whom I have never found
faulty; with such a preceptress, you cannot fail to be properly
instructed. Do not account it singular that I, with no tie of blood to
you, am interested in you; for, being the child of one who is so closely
allied to me, I am necessarily concerned in what concerns you; and
consequently the affairs of your brother, M. d'Arsat, have ever been
watched by me with as much care as my own; nor perhaps will it be to your
disadvantage that you were my step-daughter. You enjoy sufficient store
of wealth and beauty; you are a lady of good family; it only remains for
you to add to these possessions the cultivation of your mind, in which I
exhort you not to fail. I do not think necessary to warn you against
vice, a thing so odious in women, for I would not even suppose that you
could harbour any inclination for it--nay, I believe that you hold the
very name in abhorrence. Dear daughter, farewell."

All in the room were weeping and lamenting; but he held without