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and presents so readily, that I supposed you understood me.’
‘What could I understand,’ said she, ‘except that you intended to make me your wife?’
Though reared amid the proudest distinctions of rank, he felt no inclination to smile.
He blushed and was silent.
The heartless conventionalities of the world stood rebuked in the presence of affectionate simplicity.
He conveyed her to her humble home, and bade her farewell, with a thankful consciousness that he had done no irretrievable injury to her future prospects.
The remembrance of her would soon be to him as the recollection of last year's butterflies.
With her, the wound was deep.
In the solitude of her chamber she wept in bitterness of heart over her ruined air-castles.
And that dress, which she had stolen to make an appearance befitting his bride!
Oh, what if she should be discovered?
And would not the heart of her poor widowed mother break, if she should ever know that her child was a thief?
Alas, her wretched forebodings proved too true.
The silk was traced to her; she was arrested on her way to the store and dragged to prison.
There she refused all nourishment, and wept incessantly.
On the fourth day, the keeper called upon Isaac T. Hopper, and informed him that there was a young girl in prison, who appeared to be utterly friendless,
Boston, J. P. Jewett and Company; Cleveland, Ohio: Jewett, Proctor and Worthington; London; Low and Company, 1854.
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