“However, my dream of happiness was soon disturbed. By some means my parents had got an idea of this, and the young man was dismissed the house, and forbidden to come to it again. This he determined to do, and more than once we met, and then in secret I told him all my woes. When he had heard all I said, he expressed the deepest commiseration, and declared I had been most unjustly and harshly treated, and thought that there was not a harder or harsher treatment than that which I had received. He then advised me to leave home.
“’Leave home,’ I said; ‘where shall I fly? I have no friend.’
“’Come to me, I will protect you; I will stand between you and all the world; they shall not stir hand or foot to your injury.’
“’But I cannot, dare not to do that; if they found me out, they would force
