thing of passing
events--of the king's flight, of the triumphal and victorious
processions that passed up the Champs Elysees, of the sudden
impossibility of procuring supplies of change, and of the consequent
difficulty of paying household bills with _billets de mille francs_
without gold or silver.

Each day I went several times to make inquiries, and twice I saw Mrs.
Leare in bed, but Hermione was invisible.

My father, an honorable British officer of the old school, perceived how
things were with me. "My son," he said one clay, "there are two courses
open to you. You have nothing but your profession. Your education and
the premium on your admittance to the office of the great man for whom
you work have been my provision for you: the little property I have to
leave must support your sisters. You cannot under such circumstances
address Miss Leare. You must either go back at once to your work in
England and forget this episode, or you may go out to America and see
her father. You can tell him you have nothing on which to support his
daughter, and ask if he will give you leave to address the young lady.
No son of mine, situated like yourself, shall offer himself in any other
way to an heiress whose father is three thousand miles away, and who is
supposed to have two millions of francs for her dowry."

I saw he was right, but, forlorn as the hope was of any appeal to Mr.
Leare, I would not relinquish it. I resolved to go out to America and
see him, and wrote to England to secure letters of introduction to the
chief engineers in the United States and Canada. Meantime, my father
proposed that we should go together and call upon Mrs. and Miss Leare.

Hermione received us in the boudoir, looking like a bruised lily: her
mother came in afterward.

"We are going right straight home," she said, "the moment we can get
money to get away. I have written to Mr. Leare that he must find some
means to send me some."

"I am glad to hear you say this, madame," said my father. "My son has
just made up his mind to go out to America and seek employment on one of
your railways."

Hermione looked up with a question in her eyes: so did her mother.

"Why, Mr. Farquhar, that will suit us exactly," cried Mrs.
Leare.--"Hermione, won't it be lovely if Mr. Farquhar takes care of us
on the voyage?--You will engage your passage--won't you?--in the same
steamer as we do?--No one was ever so good a squire of dames as your
son, Captain Farquhar