And this time, passed in so great monotony by me, was full of event for Mathilde and those connected with her. In the first place, she accompanied her friends on a short visit to Europe, and returning, entered society at New Orleans with some _eclat_. Then followed for her father a succession of losses, one growing out of another, until his fortune was so reduced as to make it necessary for him to retrench and change his whole style of living. Under such circumstances, his pride would not permit him to remain in that part of the country where for so many years he had lived _grand seigneur_. His wife was a Virginian by birth and education, and in changing her home preferred to return to her native State. Therefore Mr. Legare purchased a small estate lying within a fertile gap of the Alleghanies, to which, in the spring of the next year, he removed his family. Up to this time Mathilde had heard nothing directly from her Saratoga lover, but had learned, through the newspapers, that he had been nominated to represent his district in the National House of Representatives. Hoping much from the two circumstances of her own reduction in worldly fortune and her lover's elevation in social rank, which must bring them nearer together in position, she had called the attention of her father to the announcement of Mr. Howard's nomination; but her fond expectations were soon dissipated by the old aristocrat's comment: "Oh, yes, my dear, I see! Any upstart can get into Congress now. Really a private station is the seat of honor; but the comfort remains that a patrician by birth, is still a patrician, no matter how low his worldly fortunes; a plebeian is still a plebeian, even though accident or caprice may constitute him a legislator." "And now what shall I do, Agnes?" wrote Mathilde, after recounting these things. "Hope! If Mr. Howard is as constant as you appear to be, you have everything to expect from time and change ordered by Providence," was my written reply. I finally left school at the commencement of the summer vacation following the spring in which Mr. Legare's family removed to their mountain home in Virginia. It was just before the ensuing Christmas that I received an invitation from Mathilde to come up and spend the holidays with her at her father's new home.