Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. LE GRAND MANOIB. I see thee weep, and thine are honest tears ; A patriot's for his country. Thou art sad At thought of her forlorn and abject state, From which no power of thine can raise her up. The Task, Book I.—Cowper. In 1790 the convents and monasteries were closed by order of the Convention, and Charlotte, then in her twentieth year, was once more turned adrift. Her father's affairs had gone from bad to worse. One of her brothers had emigrated, the other was in the army of Conde; the younger of her sisters was dead, and the elder was still living with her father in the old cottage, where one more inmate would reduce the barely sufficient to real want. So after spending two months at home with them Charlotte decided to ask a cousin of her mother's to give her shelter for a time, until she could find some suitable asylum. This cousin—whom Charlotte always called Aunt —was the widow of M. de Bretheville-Q-ouville, a ruined gentleman who had once been Treasurer of France. She was old, feeble, and poor, and lived in a gloomy house in Caen with only one servant, who was as aged and decrepid as her mistress. Mdlle. Levaillant the daughter of Mdme.de Corday's old friend, gives an interesting account of the old Aunt's excitement over Charlotte's arrival, which we translate almost verbatim. She says :— We had scarcely arrived in Caen, when we saw Mdme. de Bretheville hurrying towards us. " I am so glad you have returned! " she exclaimed to my mother. '" I didn't know where to turn. Now you have come to help me, I Jteel better ; hut I am greatly worried." "Why, what about? " asked my mother. " While you were away a relative whom I do not know, and whose family I had lost sight of for many years, has fallen upon mo from the clouds. She came...