my childhood closed that I have mourned, as I now unceasingly mourn, for
the light of day. My boyhood passed in a quiet cheerfulness; the least
trifle then could please and occupy the vacancies of my mind; but it was
as I took delight in being read to, as I listened to the vivid
descriptions of Poetry, as I glowed at the recital of great deeds, as I
was made acquainted by books with the energy, the action, the heat, the
fervour, the pomp, the enthusiasm of life, that I gradually opened to the
sense of all I was forever denied. I felt that I existed, not lived; and
that, in the midst of the Universal Liberty, I was sentenced to a prison,
from whose blank walls there was no escape. Still, however, while my
parents lived, I had something of consolation; at least I was not alone.
They died, and a sudden and dread solitude, a vast and empty dreariness,
settled upon my dungeon. One old servant only, who had attended me from
my childhood, who had known me in my short privilege of light, by whose
recollections my mind could grope back its way through the dark and
narrow passages of memory to faint glimpses of the sun, was all that
remained to me of human sympathies. It did not suffice, however, to
content me with a home where my father and my mother's kind voice were
_not_. A restless impatience, an anxiety to move, possessed me, and I
set out from my home, journeying whither I cared not, so that at least I
could change an air that weighed upon me like a palpable burden. I took
only this old attendant as my companion; he too died three months since
at Bruxelles, worn out with years. Alas! I had forgotten that he was
old, for I saw not his progress to decay; and now, save my faithless dog,
I was utterly alone, till I came hither and found _thee_."

Lucille stooped down to caress the dog; she blessed the desertion that
had led him to a friend who never could desert.

But however much, and however gratefully, St. Amand loved Lucille, her