"No—I did not know! Has it come to this? and do you call him Frank? And do you, perhaps, correspond with him? Oh, Mathilde, Mathilde, my dear! take care!"
"Oh! no, no, I do not correspond with him! never have done so! he never even asked me! but after pa got so high with him, he looked mournful and dignified, and took leave of me! Oh! he might write to me."
"Mathilde, knowing your father's sentiments, he would not, as a man of honor, commence a correspondence with you. But tell me, dear, how far this affair had gone?"
"Oh! very far indeed; he was going to ask me of papa that very day we left!"
"Wait, Mathilde! you are so young! if this is anything more serious than a passing fancy on both sides, he will delay until you leave school, and then he will first seek you at your father's house. This is the only course for a man of honor in such a case, you are aware."
"Um-m! little hope in seeking me at my father's house, with my father's estimate of a mechanic! But I do not the least believe that Frank Howard is a mechanic! He does not look like one!"
"Nonsense, my dear Mathilde! he is an intelligent Boston mechanic, who has made a valuable invention that has brought him a fortune; that is all about it."
Still Mathilde's health waned, and at last the principal of our academy wrote to her parents, who came, and finding her condition more precarious than they had anticipated, removed her from school and carried her home. Mathilde could not bring against her friend the same charge that she had brought against her lover; for I requested a frequent correspondence, and faithfully kept up my part of it.
I remained at Newton for nearly twelve months after Mathilde had left.
And this time, passed in so great monotony by me, was full of event for Mathilde and those connected with her. In the first place, she accompanied her friends on a short visit to Europe, and returning, entered society at New Orleans with some eclat.