Then her conscience came in. Because there might be worldly attractions on one side, she leaned to the other. To reject a poor suitor and accept a rich and titled one, had something of treason in it. At the end of a week she sent for them both. Henry Stevens's flatboat had been ready to start for New Orleans for two days. And Challeau, Lafort & Company were expecting the marquis, who was in some sort a ward of theirs. Henry Stevens and the Marquis Antoine d'Entremont walked side by side, in an awkward silence, to the little vine-covered cottage. Of that interview I do not know enough to write fully. But I know that Priscilla said such words as these: "This is an awful responsibility. I suppose a judge trembles when he must pass sentence of death. But I must make a decision that involves the happiness of both my friends and myself. I can not do it now. Will you wait until you both return in the spring? I have a reason that I can not explain for wishing this matter postponed. It will be decided for me, perhaps." I do not know that she said just these words, and I know she did not say them all at once. But so they parted. And Miss Nancy More, who retailed ribbons and scandal, and whose only effort at mental improvement had been the plucking out of the hairs contiguous to her forehead, that she might look intellectual--Miss Nancy More from her lookout at the window descried the two friends walking away from Mrs. Haines's cottage, and remarked, as she had often remarked before, that it was "absolutely scandalious for a young woman who was a professor to have two beaux at once, and such good friends, too!" Gifted girls like Priscilla usually have a background in some friend, intelligent, quiet, restful. Anna Poindexter, a dark, thoughtful girl, was sometimes spoken of as "Priscilla's double"; but she was rather Priscilla's opposite: her traits were complementary to those of her friend. The two were all but inseparable; and so, when Priscilla found herself the next evening on the bank of the river, she naturally found Anna with her. Slowly the flatboat of which Henry Stevens was owner and master drifted by, while the three or four men at each long oar strode back and forward on the deck as they urged the boat on. Henry was standing on the elevated bench made for the pilot, holding the long "steering oar" and guiding the craft. As his manly form in the western sunlight attracted their attention, both the girls were struck with admiration. Both waved their handkerchiefs, and Henry returned the adieu by swinging his hat. So intent was he on watching them that he forgot his duty, and one of the men was obliged to call out, "Swing her round, captain, or the mail boat'll sink us." Hardly was the boat swung out of the way when the tall-chimneyed mail boat swept by.