new dress, which she longed to have, under pretence of bad times. Apprehensive lest the present of a gown from an unknown would be refused, and that all his hopes might be blasted were he to name the donor, it was only by chance that he was relieved from this awkward dilemma, and the affair succeeded according to his wishes. He heard that Mela’s mother had been complaining to a neighbour that the crop of flax having proved so small, it had cost her more than her customers would pay her again, and that this branch of the trade was become wholly unprofitable. Frank directly hastened to a goldsmith’s, sold a pair of his mother’s gold ear-rings, and purchasing a quantity of lint, sent it by a woman to offer it to his neighbour at a more moderate price.
The bargain was concluded, and on such good terms, that on next All Saints’ Day the lovely Mela was seen in an elegant new dress.
On her appearance on this occasion, such was the passion with which it inspired our hero, that had he been allowed to select one from among the eleven thousand virgins, that one would have been Mela. Yet, at the moment he was congratulating himself on the success of his stratagem, it was unluckily discovered. For mother Brigitta, desirous of doing a kindness to the good woman who had served her in the sale of the lint, invited her to a treat, very
