From this time we lost sight altogether of our old companion. With her schoolfellows she had never formed even the common school intimacies, and to Mrs. Sherwood and her functionaries, she owed no obligation except that of money, which was now discharged. The only debt of gratitude which she had ever acknowledged, was to the old French teacher, who, although she never got nearer the pronunciation or the orthography of her name than Mademoiselle l'Ocalle, had yet, in the overflowing benevolence of her temper, taken such notice of the deserted child, as amidst the general neglect might pass for kindness. But she had returned to France. For no one else did Honor profess the slightest interest. Accordingly, she left the house where she had passed nearly all her life, without expressing any desire to hear again of its inmates, and never wrote a line to any of them. We did hear of her, however, occasionally. Rumours reached us, vague and distant, and more conflicting even than distant rumours are wont to be. She was distinguished at the vice-regal court, a beauty and a wit; she was married to a nobleman of the highest rank; she was a nun of the order of Mercy; she was dead. And as years glided on, as the old school passed into other hands, and the band of youthful companions became more and more dispersed, one of the latter opinions began to gain ground among us, when two or three chanced to meet, and to talk of old schoolfellows. If she had been alive and in the great world, surely some of us should have heard of her. Her having been a Catholic, rendered her taking the veil not improbable; and to a person of her enthusiastic temper, the duties of the sisters of Mercy would have peculiar charms. As one of that most useful and most benevolent order, or as actually dead, we were therefore content to consider her, until, in the lapse of years and the changes of destiny, we had ceased to think of her at all.