“I insist that Cinthia resembles you closely enough to be your own child.”

“Alas, I would that she were!” she cried, with sudden emotion.

CHAPTER XXXI.
MOST BITTERLY BEREAVED.

“Where’er I go I hear her low and plaintive murmuring,

I feel her little fairy clasp around my finger cling;

“I hope—I pray—that she is blest; but, oh, I pine to see

Once more the pretty pleading smile she used to give me!

“I pine to hear the low, sweet trill with which, whene’er I came,

Her little soft voice called to me, half welcome and half blame.

“I am so weary of the world, its falsehood and its strife,