“Don’t let Mabel forget me,” were the last words I spoke to Mrs. Austin, as with a bursting heart I turned from the lovely child I had made perhaps too much an idol; “and George, let her see George Gaston every day; it will be a comfort to both.”  So, choking, I went my way.

I bade Evelyn “good-by” gayly, Mr. Bainrothe superciliously, my father bitterly, for I felt his ingratitude to my heart’s core; and, under dear old Mr. Stanbury’s escort, went to the steamboat, there to find one of the lady principals of the academy ready to take charge of me on our brief voyage.  It was not in my nature to cherish depression or to make complaints and sudden confidences, and we chatted very cheerfully all the way up the river on indifferent subjects chiefly; sharing fruit and flowers, and general observations and opinions, so that I felt quite inspirited on my arrival, and made, I have reason to believe, no unfavorable impression.

My school-girl experiences I shall not record here.  They were pleasant and profitable on the whole, and I earned the esteem of my teachers, by my zeal and diligence in my studies, and made some few valued friends more or less permanent, but none so dear as those I left behind.

Laura Stanbury, quiet and uninteresting as she seemed to many, had a hold on my heart that no newer acquaintance could boast, and for dear George Gaston, where was there another like him?  I have known no one so gifted, so spiritual, so simply affectionate, as this child of genius and physical misfortune, whose short but brilliant career is engraven on the annals of his country, I well believe, indelibly.

When I was fifteen years old, I was recalled suddenly and in the middle of a busy session to my home, by the severe and almost fatal illness of my father.  He rallied, however, soon after my return, and I had the inexpressible satisfaction of hearing Dr. Pemberton, our good and skillful family physician, pronounce him out of danger a week later, but he would suffer me to go from him no more.  The voice of Nature asserted her claim at last, and, feeling within himself that indescribable failure of vitality in which no one is ever deceived, and which can never be explained to or wholly understood by another, he desired me to remain with him through the remainder of a life which he foresaw would not be long.

It was in vain that Dr. Pemberton tried to rally him on the score of his old hypochondriacal tendencies, or that Evelyn quietly remarked:  “I am sure, papa, I never saw you looking better!  It is a pity to interrupt dear Miriam now in the full tide of her studies.  I am sure that I am willing to devote every moment of my time to you if needful;” or that Mrs. Austin added:  “Miriam is so well, and growing so fast, that I am afraid to see her take on care again, for fear of a check; and now that Mabel is partly weaned from her they are both happy to be separated;” or that Mr. Bainrothe carelessly interpolated:  “Let the child go back, my dear Monfort, or you will spoil her again among you.  She is developing splendidly at St. Mark’s, and you have twenty good years before you yet, with your unbroken English constitution.”