The Count of Monte Cristo

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certainly my prospects of military preferment are most encouraging as
well as certain. My fortune, though small, is free and unfettered, and
the memory of my late father is respected in our country, Valentine, as
that of the most upright and honorable merchant of the city; I say our
country, because you were born not far from Marseilles."

"Don't speak of Marseilles, I beg of you, Maximilian; that one word
brings back my mother to my recollection--my angel mother, who died too
soon for myself and all who knew her; but who, after watching over her
child during the brief period allotted to her in this world, now, I
fondly hope, watches from her home in heaven. Oh, if my mother were
still living, there would be nothing to fear, Maximilian, for I would
tell her that I loved you, and she would protect us."

"I fear, Valentine," replied the lover, "that were she living I should
never have had the happiness of knowing you; you would then have been
too happy to have stooped from your grandeur to bestow a thought on me."