black then, my dear—­when I leaned over to kiss you in your cradle—­recalling all your pretty, engaging little baby tricks, remembering how fond and proud I was of you, and grieving over the loss that I seemed to feel more and more acutely as the years went on.  The birth of my son only made me long still more intensely for you, instead of consoling me for your loss, or banishing you from my memory, and when I saw him decked with rich laces and ribbons, like a royal babe, and playing with his jewelled rattle, I would think with an aching heart that perhaps at that very moment my dear little daughter was suffering from cold and hunger, or the unkind treatment of those who had her in charge.  Then I regretted deeply that I had not taken you away from your mother in the very beginning, and had you brought up as my daughter should be—­but when you were born I did not dream of our parting.  As years rolled on new anxieties tortured me.  I knew that you would be beautiful, and how much you would have to suffer from the dissolute men who hover about all young and pretty actresses—­my blood would boil as I thought of the insults and affronts to which you might be subjected, and from which I was powerless to shield you—­no words can tell what I suffered.  Affecting a taste for the theatre that I did not possess, I never let an opportunity pass to see every company of players that I could hear of—­hoping to find you at last among them.  But although I saw numberless young actresses, about your age, not one of them could have been you, my dear child—­of that I was sure.  So at last I abandoned the hope of finding my long-lost daughter, though it was a bitter trial to feel that I must do so.  The princess, my wife, had died three years after our marriage, leaving me only one child—­Vallombreuse—­whose ungovernable disposition has always given me much trouble and anxiety.  A few days ago, at Saint Germain, I heard some of the courtiers speak in terms of high praise of Herode’s troupe, and what they said made me determine to go and see one of their representations without delay, while my heart beat high with a new hope—­for they especially lauded a young actress, called Isabelle; whose graceful, modest, high-bred air they declared to be irresistible, and her acting everything that could be desired—­adding that she was as virtuous as she was beautiful, and that the boldest libertines respected her immaculate purity.  Deeply agitated by a secret presentiment, I hastened back to Paris, and went to the theatre that very night.  There I saw you, my darling, and though it would seem to be impossible for even a father’s eye to recognise, in the beautiful young woman of twenty, the babe that he had kissed in its cradle, and had never beheld since, still I knew you instantly—­the very moment you came in sight—­and I perceived, with a heart swelling with happiness and thankfulness, that you were all that I could wish.  Moreover, I recognised the face of an old actor, who had been