USURPING THE PLACE OF DESTINY. 
75 
Previously it had only vegetated; but then, it could really have lived 
and reigned, powerful and joyous. Long an insect, in that hour it 
would have become almost a bird, a son of the flower-enamelled earth 
and the genial light. We had acted like the Parcse, which delight in 
cutting the thread of our lives at the very moment of happiness ! 
* 
