Prev | Current Page 237 | Next

Ballou, Maturin Murray, 1820-1895

"The Heart's Secret; Or, the Fortunes of a Soldier: a Story of Love and the Low Latitudes."

O, prophetic soul, though
our eyes cannot fathom the future, there is an instinctive power in
thee that foretells evil. My life is but a sickly existence. I am
the jest and jeer of fortune, who seems delighted to thwart me, by
permitting the nearest approach to the goal of happiness, and yet
stepping in just in time to prevent the consummation of my long
cherished hopes."
As he spoke thus, he sat down by the side of his table, and casting
his eyes vacantly thereon, suddenly started at seeing the address of
his own name, and in the hand of the Countess Moranza. It was the
package she had handed to him at her dying moment. In the excitement
of the scene, and the circumstances that followed, he had not opened
it, and there it had since laid forgotten. He broke the seal, and
reading several directions of letters, notes, and small parcels,
among the rest one addressed to the queen, he came to one endorsed
as important, and bearing his own name, Lorenzo Bezan.
He broke the seal and read, "The enclosed paper is my last will and
testament, whereby I do give and bequeath to my friend, General
Lorenzo Bezan, my entire estates in the Moranza district of Seville,
as his sole property, to have and to hold, and for his heirs after
him, forever.


Pages:
225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249