I had fallen into a deep sleep, and knew it not.
It was Richard Clyde who awakened me.

His schoolmaster called him Dick, but I thought it sounded vulgar, and he was always Richard to me.

A boy of fifteen, the hardest student in the academy, and, next to my mother and Peggy, the best friend I had in the world.

I had no brother, and many a time had he acted a brother's part, when I had needed a manly champion.

Yet my mother had enjoined on me such strict reserve in my intercourse with the boy pupils, and my disposition was so shy, our acquaintance had never approached familiarity.
"I did not mean to shake you so hard," said he, stepping back a few paces as he spoke, "but I never knew any one sleep so like a log before.
I feared for a moment that you were dead." "It would not be much matter if I were," I answered, hardly knowing what I said, for a dull weight pressed on my brain, and despondency had succeeded excitement.
"Oh, Gabriella! is it not wicked to say that ?" "If you had been treated as badly as I have, you would feel like saying it too." "Yes!" he exclaimed, energetically, "you have been treated badly, shamefully, and I told the master so to his face." "You! You did not, Richard.