No. 1.--"Sir:--I do not know you, and if you are the same person who, a few weeks ago, intruded upon a conversation between myself and my companion, and were so energetically rebuked by the latter, the same who every evening pursues me when I return home from the store--then you will find it but natural that I should decline making your acquaintance. I pray you to spare me further requests, and all other letters. I should have left this note unanswered like the others, if I were not afraid to encourage your boldness by my silence. Surely no man would refuse the request of a lady, and especially of an unprotected, helpless woman?
"Marie Montbert."
No. 2.--"Sir:--You seem indeed to know how to obtain the forgiveness of a woman whom you have offended.--Whatever may have been the motives that induced you--you have dried many tears, you have saved a whole family from despair. I myself was unable to do anything for my poor countrymen--I could only pray to God to send them help. He sent you. Show yourself worthy of such favor! Remember that he who asks for reward has his reward already, and do not let your left hand know what your right hand has done.
"Your humble servant,
"Marie Montbert."
No. 3.--"What do you know of my father's fate? For heaven's sake, sir, do not trifle with the heart of a child! You say you have learnt from a French colonel of the Grand Army, in whose regiment my father made the campaign against Russia, everything about his experiences during that year, and all the minor details about his death, shortly before the passage of the Beresina. All this sounds so very improbable--and yet how could you know anything about it except from good authority?--even the colonel's name is right, as I see from my father's letters to my mother. I do not know what to believe--but why will you not give me this information, which you know must be of inestimable value to myself, in my house, I mean in the house of the good lady who has been in my mother's place for several months now? Why ask for a secret rendezvous? Why force a child, who expects information about the death of her father, to take a step which that father, if he were still alive, could never approve of? I am not appealing in vain to your generosity, I am sure.
"My lodgings are Ann Street, No. 21. If you are not afraid of three flights of steps, I shall be ready to receive you tomorrow morning, between 10 and 12 o'clock.
"Your humble servant,
"Marie Montbert."
No. 4.--"You insist upon a rendezvous which you say is by no means secret, as it is to take place in the open street, in one of the most frequented parts of the city, and at a time when the streets are still crowded with pedestrians. You will state yourself, you say, your reasons for declining to comply with my wish, 'however painful such a step may be,' and you vow I shall approve of your motives as soon as I hear them. Are you quite sure of that? But, it is true, you offer to give--I am to receive--and so I must needs give way to your wishes. I cannot, I will not, imagine that you mean to deceive me. You have been so generous towards poor and unhappy people, you will surely not be less so towards a poor unprotected girl.