Said my mother to him: “Would you leave your mother and go with a stranger to a foreign land?”
“Yes, madam. I love my mother, and you and all your family—you have always been so good to me—but I want to travel, and this gentleman says he will give me plenty of money and be very kind to me.”
Still she refused. But the boy’s mother, finally yielding to his entreaty, consented, and persuaded her mistress, saying, “if he is willing to leave me, and so anxious to go I will give him up.”
Knowing how distressed we all would be at parting with him, he went off without coming to say “good bye,” and wrote his mother from New York what day he would sail with his new master for Europe.
At first his mother received from him presents and letters, telling her he was very much delighted, and “had as much money as he knew what to do with.” But after a few months he ceased to write, and we could hear nothing from him.
At length, when eighteen months had elapsed, one day we were astonished to see him return home, dressed in the best Parisian style. We were rejoiced to see him again, and his own joy at getting back cannot be described. He ran over the yard and house examining everything, and said: “Mistress, I have seen many fine places in Europe, but none to me as pretty as this, and I have seen no lady equal to you. And I have had no water to drink as good as this—and I have dreamed about every chair and table in this house, and wondered if I would ever get back here again.”
He then gave us a sketch of his life since the “gold-tipped” man had become his master. Arrived in Paris, his master and himself took lodgings at the Hotel de Ville. A teacher was employed to come every day and instruct Robert in French. His master kept him well supplied with money, never giving him less than fifty dollars at a time. His duties were light, and he had ample time to study and amuse himself.
After enjoying such elegant ease for eight or nine months, he waked one morning and found himself deserted and penniless! His master had absconded in the night, leaving no vestige of himself except a gold dressing case and a few toilette articles of gold, which were seized by the proprietor of the hotel in payment of his bill.
Poor Robert, without money and without a friend in this great city, knew not where to turn. In vain he wished himself back in his old home.
“If I could only find some Virginian to whom I could appeal,” said he to himself. And suddenly it occurred to him that the American Minister, Mr. Mason, was a Virginian. When he remembered this his heart was cheered, and he lost no time in finding Mr. Mason’s house.