“How can I ever repay _ma chère tante_ for her kindness!” would the warm-hearted girl exclaim over and again, her fine, dark eyes dilating with emotion, and filling with tears, when with girlish frankness she would allude to the story of her birth. When I had been about two years with Madame Lalande, she resolved, very much against the wishes of her friends, to remove to Paris. She had always pined for her home during the ten or twelve years she had resided in America. She had been fortunate, and laid up some little money, with which she fancied she could establish a large school at “home,” and realize larger profits. Her health was but indifferent. She was, in fact, suffering from _maladie du pays_; and she gave up the fine school she had been so lucky in establishing in America, to grasp at an uncertainty in her own beloved Paris. Her friends reasoned, but in vain; she said the letters she received from her friends in Paris, assured her that her circumstances would be infinitely improved by a removal there. Lolah and I parted with many tears and promises for the future. The long tress of her beautiful hair, and the crayon sketch which had been made of her by her drawing-master, were her little gifts to me—gifts which I have treasured carefully. After their arrival in Paris, she wrote to me, and a few letters passed between us; but only a few. I never received but two or three from Lolah, and then the correspondence on her side ceased. I continued writing for a year or more, but at last gave it up; and year after year passed without bringing any information to me of her. I remember well what sad tears I shed over that little packet, when I first put it away in my desk; for a year or more I could not bear to open it, so miserable did the little drawing and lock of hair make me feel. Some clever German writer says, “Children live in a world of imagination and feeling;” thus I at last soothed my aching heart by imaginings of the future, and dreaming happy day-visions of a _reunion_ with my darling Lolah.