“Franconia!” exclaims one, taking her by the hand, “is not the time approaching?”

“Time always approaches,” she speaks:  her mind has been wandering, picturing the gloomy spectacle that presents itself in Clotilda’s cell.  She moves her right hand slowly across her brow, casts an enquiring glance around the room, then at those beside her, and changes her position in the chair.  “The time to have your toilet prepared-the servants await you,” is the reply.  Franconia gathers strength, sits erect in her chair, seems to have just resolved upon something.  A servant hastens into her presence bearing a delicately-enveloped note.  She breaks the seal, reads it and re-reads it, holds it carelessly in her hand for a minute, then puts it in her bosom.  There is something important in the contents, something she must keep secret.  It is from Maxwell.  Her friend evinced some surprise, while waiting a reply as she read the letter.

“No! not yet,” she says, rising from her chair and sallying across the room.  “That which is forced upon me-ah!  I cannot love him.  To me there is no loving wealth.  Money may shelter; but it never moves hearts to love truly.  How I have struggled against it!” Again she resumes her chair, weeps.  Her tears gush from the parent fountain-woman’s heart.  “My noble uncle in trouble, my dear brother gone; yes! to where, and for what, I dare not think; and yet it has preyed upon me through the struggle of pride against love.  My father may soon follow; but I am to be consigned to the arms of one whom it would be folly to say I respect.”

Her friend, Miss Alice Latel, reminds her that it were well not to let such melancholy wanderings trouble her.  She suggests that the colonel, being rich, will fill the place of father as well as husband; that she will be surrounded by the pleasures which wealth only can bring, and in this world what more can be desired?

“Such fathers seldom make affectionate husbands; nor do I want the father without the husband; his wealth would not make me respect him.”  Franconia becomes excited, giving rapid utterance to her language.  “Can I suppress my melancholy-can I enjoy such pleasure, and my dear Clotilda in a prison, looking through those galling gratings?  Can I be happy when the anguish of despair pierces deep into her heart?  No! oh, no!  Never, while I think of her, can I summon resolution to put on a bridal robe.  Nay!  I will not put them on without her.  I will not dissemble joy while she sinks in her prison solitude!”

“Can you mean that-at this hour?” enquires Miss Alice, looking upon her with anxiety pictured in her face.  One gives the other a look of surprise.  Miss Alice must needs call older counsel.