She could not refer Mr.Bell to her mamma, for Mr.Coacher was a widower, and being immersed in his books, was of course unable to take the direction of so frail and wondrous an article as a lady's heart, which Miss Martha had to manage for herself.
A lock of her hair, tied up in a piece of blue ribbon, conveyed to the happy Bell the result of the Vestal's conference with herself.

Thrice before had she snipt off one of her auburn ringlets, and given them away.

The possessors were faithless, but the hair had grown again: and Martha had indeed occasion to say that men were deceivers when she handed over this token of love to the simple boy.
Number 6, however, was an exception to former passions--Francis Bell was the most faithful of lovers.

When his time arrived to go to college, and it became necessary to acquaint Mr.Coacher of the arrangements that had been made, the latter cried, "God bless my soul, I hadn't the least idea what was going on;" as was indeed very likely, for he had been taken in three times before in precisely a similar manner; and Francis went to the University resolved to conquer honours, so as to be able to lay them at the feet of his beloved Martha.
This prize in view made him labour prodigiously.

News came, term after term, of the honours he won.