CHAPTER XX.
September, 1829 .-- A chasm of many months in my journal.

When last I closed it, little could I have foreseen the terrible blow that awaited me.

Well may I exclaim with the French writer whose works I have been just reading, "_Nous, qui sommes bornes en tout, comment le sommes-nous si peu quand il s'agit de souffrir_." How slowly has time passed since! Every hour counted, and each coloured by care, the past turned to with the vain hope of forgetting the present, and the future no longer offering the bright prospect it once unfolded! How is my destiny changed since I last opened this book! My hopes have faded and vanished like the leaves whose opening into life I hailed with joy six months ago, little dreaming that before the first cold breath of autumn had tinted them with brown, _he_ who saw them expand with me would have passed from the earth! _October_ .-- Ill, and confined to my chamber for several days, my physician prescribes society to relieve low spirits; but in the present state of mine, the remedy seems worse than the disease.
My old friends Mr.and Mrs.Mathews, and their clever son, have arrived at Paris and dined here yesterday.

Mr.Matthews is as entertaining as ever, and his wife as amiable and _spirituelle_.

They are excellent as well as clever people, and their society is very agreeable.