the wooing of these two delightful people, the beautiful girl and the
gallant sailor, in the ocean isle, with its tropical perfumes and
colours, its superb mountain and valley scenery, bathed in
eternal sunshine by day and kissed by cool ocean breezes by night--the
isle of Paul and Virginia, the isle which to Alexandre Dumas was the
Paradise of the World, an enchanted oasis of the ocean, "all carpeted
with greenery and refreshed with cooling streams, where, no matter what
the season, you may gently sink asleep beneath the shade of palms and
jamrosades, soothed by the babbling of a crystal spring."

Think of how he must have entertained and thrilled her with accounts of
his adventures: of storms, of fights with the terrible English, of the
chasing of corsairs and the battering of the fleets of Indian princes.
Think of her open-eyed wonder, and of the awakening of love in her
heart; and then of her dread, lest after all, despite his consoling
words and soft assurances, he, the Comte, the officer, should be
forbidden to marry her, the maiden who had only her youth, her beauty,
and her character, but no rank, no fortune, to win favour from the
proud people who did not know her. The author is at all events certain
of this: that if the letters had seen the light before old Alexandre
Dumas died, he would have pounced upon them with glee, and would have
written around them a romance that all the world would have rejoiced to
read.

But while we think of what the novelists have missed, we are neglecting
the real story, the crisis of which we have now reached.

Seeing Eleonore again, his sensitive heart deeply moved by her sorrow,
Laperouse took a manly resolution. He would marry her despite
all obstacles. He had promised her at her home in Ile-de-France. He