officer to whom his
sister was engaged had charged her to break off all intercourse with
me, as I was a man of no principle. Several other circumstances added
to the irritation caused by this unfortunate affair, and though I did
my best to spare my fair friend every sorrow, yet the affair took a
serious turn. The conversation ended in a duel. I shot into a tree, but
the brother whose blood was hotter than mine, grazed my side with his
bullet. It was not much to speak of, but the agitation which I with
difficulty repressed, the cold of the winter morning in which I drove
for several hours in my carriage back to town, and the pain and rage I
felt at seeing this pure and charming tie so foolishly rent asunder,
all this laid me prostrate. I only rose from an inflammatory fever to
be sent here as incurable. And now, dear Marie, you will understand why
I can no longer make light of your innocently walking by the side of a
man supposed to be without principles. I who, at least, have always
adhered firmly to one thing, and that is not to seek my own happiness
at the cost of another's."

I had long made up my mind how I should answer him. "If you have
confided all this to me, with the hope of changing my opinion," I said,
"you little know me. It can only confirm me in the belief that I do
well in availing myself of the right of speaking the truth to you. A
right which, is only granted to the dying.

"All the good I have enjoyed in this life I have had to struggle for. I
so truly prize our mutual friendship that I will not renounce it so
easily. What would friendship be worth, if one had not the courage to
acknowledge, and defend it when attacked. How mean and false, should I
not appear in my own eyes, and in yours, if I changed in my conduct
towards you because bad or silly people accuse you of things which I
know to be untrue. I too depend on no one, in consideration of whom, I
being a girl should subject my feelings, against my convictions.

"If my father should ever hear that in my last days I had formed a firm
friendship with a stranger, he will only think highly of the stranger
in whom his daughter confided.

"So no more of these reflections which ought never to have troubled
you, and we will remain what we were before, good comrades. Is it not
so, my friend?"

"Till death," he said, and pressed my hand, greatly agitated. I soon,
succeeded in cheering him again, and this happy day would have closed
harmoniously, but