ook an early departure,
telling Tekla that:

"It is always a bad thing for the uninvited to stay on. Through my
natural delicacy I understood that I was one too many. I had to go,
albeit with sorrow. I will now ask you where you are going to-morrow. If
I could find a good excuse I would go there too. ... May Heaven bless
the mother and daughter, and may it also send down upon the father, even
though he is unfriendly to me, bountiful riches of health. ... I kiss
your little feet, and when you are dining with an Englishman and
Frenchman forget not the Pole who wishes you well."[1]

[Footnote 1: _op. cit_.]

"Captains P. and P. told me," he says later, "that I was the cause of
your shedding tears. That such precious drops from lovely springs should
be shed through suspicion of me causes the greatest anguish to my heart.
Therefore I kneel and kiss your little hands until I win your pardon.
But think not that I ever had any idea of casting an aspersion on you.
It was only the result of my native frankness. I never have failed to
relate to a friendly person what I see, think, and hear. Now I will
correct myself. Never henceforth will I practise my frankness on you:
even my thoughts shall be restrained."[1]

But at times he attempted to keep the young lady in some sort of
discipline.

"Going to dine two miles off"--the Polish mile, be it observed, is more
than three times the length of ours--"is a very bad thing," not for
herself, he hastens to add: "four miles for your delicate mother are too
much, and I am afraid lest she should feel it. As for you, if it were
eight, all the better. The more you exert yourself the better your
health will be. Jump, laugh, run, but don't sleep after dinner; and if
you cannot go out, at least walk in the hall, play or read."[2]

Again: "Please write more clearly, for I lose half of the pleasure; or
if you will write in pencil, wet it in water, then the letters will not
be rubbed out."[3]

On her side the lady imposed orders upon her lover with which he, not
very willingly, complied.

"I have acted according to thy command," he writes, "and will not go to
the christening, although it was disagreeable to me to refuse. I have no
choice, because thou only art the mistress of my heart. Do whatever
seems to thee best. To behold thee happy is my prayer to God." He tells
her that he sees her father prowling about the windows of his own house
and looking suspiciously in the direction of Kosciu