He made them so thoroughly that he died of yellow fever before having begun his work, having come to the end of his money and leaving his widow in the most cruel destitution.

Countess Larinski said to her son: "We have nothing more to live on; but, then, is it so necessary to live ?" She uttered these words with an angelic smile about her lips.

Abel set out for California.

He undertook the most menial services; he swept the streets, acted as porter; what cared he, so long as his mother did not die of hunger?
All that he earned he sent to her, enduring himself the most terrible privations, making her think that he denied himself nothing.
In the course of time Fortune favoured him; he had acquired a certain competency.

The countess came to rejoin him in San Francisco; but angels cannot live in the rude, exciting atmosphere of the gold-seekers; they suffer, spread their wings, and fly away.