of my present companion. But such desires are never to be
gratified. Though the members of Monsieur du Miroir's family have
been accused, perhaps justly, of visiting their friends often in
splendid halls, and seldom in darksome dungeons, yet they exhibit a
rare constancy to the objects of their first attachment, however
unlovely in person or unamiable in disposition,--however
unfortunate, or even infamous, and deserted by all the world
besides. So will it be with my associate. Our fates appear
inseparably blended. It is my belief, as I find him mingling with
my earliest recollections, that we came into existence together, as
my shadow follows me into the sunshine, and that hereafter, as
heretofore, the brightness or gloom of my fortunes will shine upon,
or darken, the face of Monsieur du Miroir. As we have been young
together, and as it is now near the summer noon with both of us, so,
if long life be granted, shall each count his own wrinkles on the
other's brow and his white hairs on the other's head. And when the
coffin-lid shall have closed over me and that face and form, which,
more truly than the lover swears it to his beloved, are the sole
light of his existence,--when they shall be laid in that dark
chamber, whither his swift and secret footsteps cannot bring him,--
then what is to become of poor Monsieur du Miroir? Will he have the
fortitude, with my other friends, to take a last look at my pale
countenance? Will he walk foremost in the funeral train? Will he
come often and haunt around my grave, and weed away the nettles, and
plant flowers amid the verdure, and scrape the moss out of the
letters of my burial-stone? Will he linger where I have lived, to
remind the neglectful world of one who staked much to win a name,
but will not then care whether he lost or won?

Not thus will he prove his deep fidelity. O, what terror, if this