"The Fort, June 20.
"My dear Cousin Ethan,—I have never written to you but once since I was a child. I have never told you anything except that I wished you 'A Merry Christmas,' or was glad you were coming—which you know you never did. I don't think you ever will, and, besides, I can't wait for you. It may seem funny that, not knowing you any better, I should write you now about a matter of the deepest importance, but you are my cousin, and, after my father, you are my nearest kinsman, and I am in need of help. I want to be a singer—not a mere parlor warbler, but a Great Singer. I have a tremendous voice. I am obliged to tell you this, since you can't hear it. I practise every day by myself, though I can't use the piano much on account of grandma. I have always led the singing at school; all the rest, nearly three hundred girls, follow. But I have never been able properly to study music. I was going to run away and be a chorus girl till I could earn enough to study for grand opera, but my father has induced me to wait—just a little. He is going to take me East in the fall, and says I may 'Look over the field.' He says, too, it will give me an opportunity of seeing how difficult it is to do what I mean to do. But I don't think it's a good plan to take all that trouble (his cough is very bad) just to show me the thing is difficult. What I want to be shown is the way—no matter how hard—that it may be done. The trouble is, that my dear father, who knows many great scientists, and a few politicians, doesn't know any famous singers, and nobody about here does, and nobody seems to know any one who ever did know an opera-singer, much less a manager. My grandmother has often told me that you have artistic tastes, and now comes the Pall Mall of London with your 'Song for Sylvia.' I've made up five tunes to it, and I think you would like them, since, unlike my family, you are artistic. I've been thinking a person like you must have great opportunities. You probably know singers, managers, musicians, and all sorts of delightful people. I wonder if you would help me to find out how a girl with a very exceptional voice can get it heard and get it trained? I know there are people who do these things, and when they discover a great voice they make their fortunes; so it is not a favor in the end on the part of the manager. But if you showed me the way, and could lend me five hundred dollars, it would always be a favor from you, and I would be grateful to you for ever and ever. If you will send me a letter of introduction to a manager, I think that would be best—that and five hundred dollars—and perhaps you would be so very kind as to send me the lives of Jenny Lind and Patti. It would help me to know what steps they took. I don't mind any hardship or any labor—I mind nothing but not getting my chance. Don't be afraid of encouraging me to do something the family has not been accustomed to—my father is on my side; and, anyhow, they would have to kill me before they could keep me back now. So you will not feel any responsibility. I would rather be helped by you because you are my relation, but if you won't, I must find somebody else. I remain, your affectionate cousin,
"Val Gano.
"P.S.—I am a good deal over fifteen; strangers all think I am twenty.
"P.S. No. 2.—Of course I will pay back the five hundred dollars, principal and interest. I will send you a promissory note, like the arithmetic says."
This document was conveyed to the mail with secrecy and despatch. The days went by like malicious snails; she had never known time drag before. The slow weeks gathered into monotonous months, and still no answer. Never mind, she would do everything just the same—better—without his help. Her future triumphs took on more the aspect of a judgment on cousin Ethan than a mere reward to Val. She made up scenes of the coming encounters, when, from the vantage-ground of being "better than Patti," she would overwhelm her cousin with scorn. She would meet him as a perfect stranger, declare her surprise at his claiming her for his cousin. He would find his chief distinction in this kinship. He would lay his millions at her feet. She would spurn them. "I have my own millions now. Had it been earlier, cousin, it had been kind."
September was drawing to a close. Everything was merging now in the excitement of the Eastern trip, fixed for the end of November.
Idling in the autumn sunshine at the front door after breakfast one morning, Val and Emmie had a friendly scuffle as to who should take the mail from the postman. The little heap of letters and papers was soon sown broadcast in the fray, and still no sign of either yielding, till Val was arrested on catching sight of the addressed side of one of the envelopes—"Mrs. Sarah C. Gano," in cousin Ethan's hand. But the real significance lay in the stamp. Not this time the scantily-clad gentleman and lady, clasping hands over a mauve world, of the République Française; no goggle-eyed, mustachioed Umberto, in blue, with his hair on end, and Poste Italiane Centesimi Venticinque round him in an oval frame; it was not even the twopenny-half-penny indigo head of Queen Victoria; but their own rosy two-cent Washington, risking his health in a low-neck coat, but saving his dignity by the queue. This was the first letter from Ethan in five years that did not bear a foreign postmark. While Val stood staring, Emmie had whipped up the letters and carried them in to her grandmother.
Val, in an agony of suspense, remained in the hall. Presently Emmie came flying out, clapping her hands. Mrs. Gano followed briskly with the open letter.
"All those old Tallmadges are dead!" cried Emmie, jumping up and down behind her grandmother. "He's been back in America over two months, and he's coming here next week."
Mrs. Gano was hurrying up-stairs to tell her son the great news.