* * * * *

We were once more at home.  Almost the first news that came to us from abroad was of the terrible war between France and Germany.  During the protracted siege of Paris we were full of anxieties, but at its close we received long letters from Madame Le Fort, giving many details of the sufferings and privations of the siege, sorrowful enough for the most part, but enlivened here and there with touches of the gay French humor that nothing can subdue.  There was a lively sketch of a Christmas dinner ingeniously got up of several courses of donkey-meat.  At New Year’s the choicest gift that a gentleman could make a lady was a piece of wheaten bread.  Afterward there was nothing in the house but rice and chocolate bonbons, which they chewed sparingly, a little at a time.  But they kept up their courage—­they were even gay.  Hardships were nothing, but that Paris should be surrendered at last—­that was a humiliation which nothing could compensate.  Many of the gay dancers whom we had known had fallen in battle, among them, Rene Vergniaud.  He was shot in the heart in an engagement with the Prussians in the environs of Paris.

I spent my next summer vacation with Miss St. Clair in Detroit.

“When is Mr. Denham coming home?” I asked one evening when we were alone together.

“I do not know:  he does not speak of coming home.  I am a little puzzled about Fred. He has written me a great deal lately about a certain Fraeulein Teresa, the daughter of one of his professors, who takes such excellent care of her younger brothers and sisters, and who is such a wonderfully economical, housewifely little body—­just a new edition of Werther’s Charlotte.  I do not think that he really likes her,” she continued after musing a little:  “he just holds her up as a model for me to copy.  I shouldn’t wonder if she was only imaginary, to make me feel how far I come short of his ideal.  Fred says that he worships the very ground I tread on—­slightly hyperbolical and very original, you perceive,” with a satirical curve of her pretty lips—­“but he never seems half satisfied with me.  He ought to know by this time that I must be just my own little self, and not a second-hand imitation of somebody else.”

The next day came a letter with a German postmark, which was so eloquent on the subject of Fraeulein Teresa that it elicited the following reply: 

    “DETROIT, August 5, 1871.

“DEAR FRED:  I despair of emulating Fraeulein Teresa’s many excellencies.  You know what a useless little thing I am.  Happily, it is not too late to make another choice.  Thinking it may please you, I hereby release you from all your promises to me.  We may never be anything more to each other perhaps, but I hope that we shall always be dear friends.  I shall never forget that we grew up together, and I wish you all possible happiness.

    “Your little friend, HELEN.”