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With Carlo's death, Natalie had lost her last friend; with the stolen

money and diamonds, Marianne was robbed of her last pecuniary means But

Natalie paid no attention to Marianne's lamentations What cared she for

poverty and destitution--what knew she of these outward treasures, of

this wealth consisting in gold and jewels? Natalie knew only that she

had been robbed of a noble, spiritual possession--that they had murdered

the friend who had consecrated hi over his body, she dedicated to him the tribute of a

tear of the purest gratitude, of saddest lamentation

But so imperfect is the world that it often leaves no ti--that in the midst of our sorrow it causes us to hear the

prosaic voices of reality and necessity, cohts from painfully-sweet remembrances of a lost

happiness to the realities of practical life

Natalie's delicately-sensitive soul was to experience this rough contact

of reality, and, with an internal shudder, h

hand of the present

Pale, breathless, tre, rushed Marianne into the roo for her lost friend

"We are ruined, hopelessly ruined!" screamed Marianne "They will drive

us from our last possession, they will turn us out of our house! All the

misfortunes of the whole world break over and crush us!"