Victor's Triumph. Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
to me. The poor have no correspondents. I did not expect a letter, and I am not disappointed," murmured Mary Grey, with that charming expression, between a smile and a sigh, that she had always found so effective.
"Well, there is no letter for any one, it seems, so none of us have cause to feel slighted by fortune more than others," added Emma Cavendish, cheerfully.
But Peter, the post-office boy, looked from one to the other, with his black eyes growing bigger and bigger, as he felt with his hand in the empty mail-bag and exclaimed:
"I'clar's to de law der was a letter for some uns. Miss Emmer, 'cause I see de pos'marser put it in de bag wid his own hands, which it were a letter wid a black edge all 'round de outside of it, and a dob o' black tar, or somethink, onto the middle o' the back of it."
As the boy spoke, the Rev. Dr. Jones began again to turn over the magazines and newspapers until he found the letter, which had slipped between the covers of the Edinboro' Review.
"It is for you, my dear," he said, as he passed the missive across the table to Miss Cavendish.
"I wonder from whom it comes? The handwriting is quite unfamiliar to me. And the postmark is New York, where I have no correspondents whatever," said Emma, in surprise, as she broke the black seal.
"Oh, maybe it's a circular from some merchant who has heard of the great Alleghany heiress," suggested Electra.
"You will permit me?" said Emma, glancing at her companions as she unfolded her letter.
And then, as one and another nodded and smiled and returned to their magazines and papers. Emma Cavendish glanced at the signature of her strange letter, started with surprise, gazed at it a second time more attentively, and then turned hurriedly and began to read it.
And as she read her face paled and flushed, and she glanced from time to time at the faces of her companions; but they were all engaged with pamphlets and papers, except Mrs. Grey, whom Emma perceived to be furtively watching her.
The strange letter was written in rather a wild and rambling style of composition, as if the writer were a little brain sick. It ran as follows:
"Blank Hotel, New York City, April 27th, 18—.
"My dear Miss Cavendish:—Our near blood relationship might warrant me in addressing you as my dear Emma. But I refrain, because you would not understand the familiarity any more than you recognize this handwriting, which must seem as strange to you as my face would seem if I were to present myself bodily before you; for you have never set eyes upon me, and perhaps have never even heard my name mentioned or my existence alluded to.
"And yet I am one of your family, near of kindred to yourself; in fact, your own dear mother's only sister.
"'We were two daughter's of one race,
She was the fairer in the face.'
Yes, she was literally so. Your mother was a beautiful blonde, as I have been told that you, her only child, also are. I am—or, rather, I was before my hair turned white with sorrow—a very dark brunette.
"If you have ever heard of me at all, which I doubt—for I know that at home my once loved and cherished name
"'Was banished from each lip and ear,
Like words of wickedness or fear'—
but if you ever heard of me at all you must have heard of that willful love marriage which separated me from all my family.
"Since that ill-omened marriage an unbroken succession of misfortunes have attended my husband and myself until they culminated in the most crushing calamity of our lives—the loss of our dear and only daughter in a manner worse than death.
"Soon after that awful bereavement our creditors foreclosed the mortgage on our estate at White Perch Point, and sold the place over our heads.
"And my poor husband and myself went out to California, childless and almost penniless, to begin life anew.
"We began in a very humble way indeed. As he was familiar with hotel business he got a place as bar-tender in a San Francisco hotel; and soon afterward I got a place in the same house, to look after and keep in repair the bed and table linen. And we lodged in the hotel, in a small attic chamber, and took our meals in the pantry.
"But we were both utterly broken down in mind and body, as well as in estate.
"He soon sank into a consumption and had to give up his place. I hired a room in a small house and took him to it. I still retained my place at the hotel, because my salary there was the only support we had. But I lived there no longer. I used to go in the morning, make the daily inspection of the linen, and bring home what needed mending; and working all the afternoon and half the night at my husband's bedside.
"But rent and food and fuel, physic and physicians' fees were very costly in San Francisco. And with all my work I fell deeper and deeper into debt.
"At length my poor husband died. And it took the proceeds of the sale of all our little personal effects to pay for the humblest sort of funeral.
"And I was left entirely destitute. Then my courage gave way. I wept myself so blind that I could no longer mend the linen at the hotel, or even see whether it wanted mending. Then I fell sick with sorrow and had to be taken to the hospital.
"At the end of three months I was dismissed. But where could I go? What could I do, broken in health and nearly blind as I was?
"I must have perished then and there but for the timely assistance of a young gold-digger who happened to hear about me when he came up to the city from his distant mining-camp.
"He was a very queer young man, whom his few friends called crazy on account of his lonely and ascetic manner of life, and his lavish liberality.
"He sought me out to relieve my wants. And upon my telling him that all I wanted was to go home to die, he bought me a whole state-room to myself in the first cabin of the 'Golden City,' bound from San Francisco to New York. And then he bought me an outfit in clothing, good enough for a duke's widow. And he gave me a sum of money besides, and started me fairly and comfortably on my voyage.
"I reached New York three days ago. But my strength continues to fail and my funds to waste. I have no power to work, even if I could procure anything to do. And I have not money enough to support me a month longer.
"I do not like to go into an alms-house. Yet what am I to do?
"But why do I write to you? you may naturally inquire.
"Why? Because, although a perfect stranger, you are, after all, my niece, my only sister's only child, my own only blood relation. And 'blood is thicker than water.'
"'I can not work; to beg I am ashamed.'
"I do not, therefore, beg, even of you. I do not so much as make any suggestion to you. I tell you the facts of the case, and I leave you to act upon them, or to ignore them entirely, at your pleasure.
"I do not even know whether I may venture to sign myself your aunt,
Katherine Fanning."
Emma Cavendish read this letter through to the end; then she glanced at her companions, who were still all absorbed in the perusal of their journals.
Even Mrs. Grey was now lost in a magazine; but it was Les Modes de Paris, and contained plates and descriptions of all the new spring fashions.
So Miss Cavendish, seeing her friends all agreeably occupied and amused, returned to her singular letter and recommenced and read it carefully through to the end once more.
At the conclusion of the second reading she looked up and spoke to the Rev. Dr. Jones, saying:
"Are you reading anything very interesting in that Quarterly Review, my dear uncle?"
"Well, yes, my child—an article entitled 'Have Animals Reason?'"
"Reason