"It certainly was hard, but was it right to let them think that, perhaps, you had become too proud to associate with your own family?"
"Oh, I know, I know, it was a horrid thing to do, and I have been well punished for it, but I felt, in my resentful shame, that I wanted to fly from every one who had ever known me. It was so belittling—so despicable! Some trials make us nobler, and awaken the sympathy of our friends; other excite only ridicule. Mine were utterly ridiculous and common to others though bitter to me. But I have suffered through my pride—oh, how I have suffered!"
"You were always given to exaggerating things Anna—beg pardon! Lady——"
"No, no, use the old name—I like it! Aren't you the one friend left me? I want no titles from you. They are worse than nonsense between such life-long friends. And what a 'sounding brass' any title of mine must seem to you, anyhow! But we're wandering from the subject. My sister Clara wrote a peculiar hand, plain, large, and straight up and down, yet rather handsome. I've never seen writing just like it—until a few days ago—and after turning the matter over and over to no purpose, I concluded to come to you. An envelope addressed to the Misses Hosmer, and postmarked Portsmouth, England was blown along the deck to my side, lately, and when I absently picked it up it was, apparently, to see my sister's writing before me. I asked your daughter Faith who wrote that address, and she said a lodger of her old nurse's, but could not tell the name—had forgotten it. But she described my sister, Clara Leroy, as perfectly as I could. What does it mean? More than that, she said she and Hope both thought her an American. Is it possible my own Clara may be hunting me up in England? It seems too good to believe!"
"It is strange!" assented the captain, with some excitement. "And to think my girls have forgotten her name—what a pity! But they must remember it. I'll set their wits at work. Your sister! Why, this is like a story."
"It is better than that; it means life and hope to me. Oh, if I am deceiving myself!" sighed the lady. "That is what has made me hesitate about speaking to you—I was so afraid it was only my imagination, and I could not bear to think of disappointment. But the more I study the writing the surer I am. Every time I look at that envelope I feel surer and safer! You don't know how it braces me to bear with Duncan's strangeness."
"Why 'strangeness'? I thought we had agreed that his letters have simply been lost, and, if he is in India, he will be as glad to see you as you him, didn't we?"
"Oh, if I could be certain of that!"
"I shouldn't allow myself to think anything else."
"It is so easy to talk when it is not our own trouble!"