It was three weeks ere Paul was sufficiently recovered to walk. For day after day, when his strength was restored, he wandered among the places endeared to him by memories of Virginia. His eyes grew hollow, his colour faded, his health gradually but visibly declined. I strove to mitigate his feelings by giving him change of scene, by taking him to the busy inhabited parts of the island. My efforts proving quite ineffectual, I tried to console him by reminding him that Virginia had gained eternal happiness.
"Since death is a blessing, and Virginia is happy," he replied mournfully, "I will die, also, that I may again be united to her."
Thus, the consolation I sought to administer only aggravated his despair.
Paul died two months after his beloved Virginia, whose name was ever on his lips to the last. Margaret survived her son only by a week, and Madame de la Tour, who had borne all her terrible losses with a greatness of soul beyond belief, lived but another month.
By the side of Virginia, at the foot of the bamboos near the church of Pamplemousses, Paul was laid to rest. Close at hand the two mothers were buried. No marble is raised over their humble graves, no inscriptions record their virtues, but in the hearts of those who loved them, they have left a memory that time can never efface.
With these words the old man, tears flowing from his eyes, arose and went away.
GEORGE SAND
Consuelo
The life of the great French novelist, George Sand, is as romantic as any of the characters in her novels. She was born at Paris in July, 1804, her real name being Armandine Lucile Aurore Dupin. At eighteen she married the son of a colonel and baron of the empire, by name Dudevant, but after nine years she separated from her husband, and, bent upon a literary career, made her way to Paris. Success came quickly. Entering into a literary partnership with her masculine friend, Jules Sandeau, the chief fruit of their joint enterprise was "Rose et Blanche." This was followed by her independent novel, "Indiana," a story that brought her the enthusiastic praises of the reading public, and the warm friendship of the most distinguished personages in French literary society. A few years later her relations with the poet Alfred De Musset provided the matter for what is now an historic episode. Her literary output was enormous, consisting of a hundred or more volumes of novels and stories, four volumes of autobiography, and six of correspondence. Yet everything that she wrote is marked by that richness, delicacy and power of style and of thought which constitutes her genius. "Consuelo," which appeared in 1844, is typical of all these in its sparkling dialogue, flowing narrative, and vivid description. George Sand died on June 7, 1876.