arton recommended me
very warmly; and, as two of her younger daughters are pupils in the
house, her patronage availed to get me the place. It was settled that I
am to attend six hours daily (for, happily, it was not required that
I should live in the house; I should have been sorry to leave my
lodgings), and, for this, Mrs. D. will give me twelve hundred francs per
annum.

"You see, therefore, monsieur, that I am now rich; richer almost than
I ever hoped to be: I feel thankful for it, especially as my sight was
beginning to be injured by constant working at fine lace; and I was
getting, too, very weary of sitting up late at nights, and yet not being
able to find time for reading or study. I began to fear that I should
fall ill, and be unable to pay my way; this fear is now, in a great
measure, removed; and, in truth, monsieur, I am very grateful to God for
the relief; and I feel it necessary, almost, to speak of my happiness
to some one who is kind-hearted enough to derive joy from seeing others
joyful. I could not, therefore, resist the temptation of writing to you;
I argued with myself it is very pleasant for me to write, and it will
not be exactly painful, though it may be tiresome to monsieur to
read. Do not be too angry with my circumlocution and inelegancies of
expression, and, believe me

"Your attached pupil,

"F. E. HENRI."

Having read this letter, I mused on its contents for a few
moments--whether with sentiments pleasurable or otherwise I will
hereafter note--and then took up the other. It was directed in a hand
to me unknown--small, and rather neat; neither masculine nor exactly
feminine; the seal bore a coat of arms, concerning which I could only
decipher that it was not that of the Seacombe family, consequently the
epistle could be from none of my almost forgotten, and certainly quite
forgetting patrician relations. From whom, then, was it? I removed the
envelope; the note folded within ran as follows:

"I have no doubt in the world that you are doing well in that greasy
Flanders; living probably on the fat of the unctuous land; sitting like
a black-haired, tawny-skinned, long-nosed Israelite by the flesh-pots
of Egypt; or like a rascally son of Levi near the brass cauldrons of the
sanctuary, and every now and then plunging in a consecrated hook, and
drawing out of the sea, of broth the fattest of heave-shoulders and the
fleshiest of wave-breasts. I know this, because you never write to any
one i