that he wanted was our betrothal, and then a couple of years
to try his fortune in, and I--to wait ten years for him would have been
as nothing to me. But you should have heard my father! The Emperor of
China, if some crazy sailor were to apply for his daughter's hand,
could not put on a more majestic aspect, or pronounce a more
compassionate "No." He was not even angry, he treated the whole thing
as a mere stupid jest. It was only when my mother--who well knew how my
heart stood--ventured to address him on the subject, and to represent
Hans Lutz as not after all a quite despicable suitor, that he was
roused to indignation and silenced her at once. As for me, when I
declared that I never would have any one else for my husband, I was
locked up, and sat for eight days like an imprisoned princess in the
best room, only visited by my mother and sister. To be sure I still had
my pretty face, but what was that to me, I was made to feel that I
myself had no right to it.

"'I sent through Lina, a letter to Hans Lutz, declaring that I would
remain true to him, and begging for God's sake, that he would not
punish me for my father's vengeance and anger. To which he wrote me
back word that he had no hope, that he was going far away, perhaps to
America, and did not know that he should ever return. I was to give up
all thought of him, and he formally returned both my word and my ring.
For well he knew what would be the end of it all; my parents would look
me out some husband after their own heart, and at last I too should get
tired of waiting, and so he would not bind me, and add to all other
sorrow, the weight of a broken promise on my heart. You may well
imagine with how many tears I read that letter, when Lina told me that
the writer was already no one knew how far away, and had not wished her
to give it me till after his departure.

"'After this all went on apparently in the old way, with this
exception, that though I was still "the fair Kate," and estimated as
such, there stole over me a silent and unconquerable detestation of my
own face, since it had cost me my dearest happiness. But for my father,
who was bent upon cutting a figure with me, I should never have come
down from my upper room, and as it was I only did so when I could not
possibly help it. I never sat in the open window except with my back
turned, no power on earth could get me on a steamer where the English
stared so, and when artists came to draw or paint me, I