On an impulse Jenny replied, “Yes, Gwynette, I can understand, because we are sisters.”
Instantly Jenny regretted having revealed the long kept secret, for Gwynette sank down on a lounge near her, her hand pressed to her heart, every bit of color receding from her face until she was deathly pale.
Jenny, all solicitude, exclaimed: “Oh, are you going to faint? I ought not to have told you. But you asked me! Forgive me, if you can.”
There was a hard, glinting light between the arrowed lids of the older girl. “Jenny Warner, I do not believe you! Why should you know more of my parentage than I do myself?”
Sadly Jenny told the story. She deeply regretted that her impulsiveness had rendered the revelation necessary. “One stormy day, several years ago, while I was rummaging around in the attic of the farmhouse, I found pushed way back in a dark cobwebby corner a small haircloth trunk which interested me. I did not think it necessary to ask permission to open it, as I did not dream that it held a secret which my dear grandparents might not wish me to discover, and so I dragged it over to the small window. Sitting on one of the broken backed chairs, I lifted the lid. The first thing that I found was a darling little Bible, bound in soft leather. It was quaint and old-fashioned. Miss Dearborn had taught me to love old books, and I at once looked for the date it had been published, when two things dropped out. One was a photograph. There were four in the group. The man was young and reminded me of Robert Burns; his companion was a very beautiful girl, and yet under her picture had been written ‘Mother’ and under the other ‘Father.’ I judged that was because with them were two children. Beneath them was written, ‘Gwynette, aged three; Jeanette, just one today.’ And then there was the date. The other was an unfinished letter, written in purple ink that had faded. Its message was very sad, for it told that the girl-mother had died and the young wandering missionary, our father, feared that he had not long to live because of frequent heart attacks. He wanted his little girls to know that they came of a New England family that was above reproach, the Waterburys of Waltham, Mass.
“How well I remember the last message that dear hand had been able to write. ‘My darling little baby girls, I have had another of those dread attacks, but I do want to say with what strength I have left, as the years go by, love ye one another.’ That was all. Then the pen had fallen, I think, for there was a blot and an irregular blurred line of ink.”
Gwyn, crushed with an overwhelming sense of self-pity, had buried her head in the soft silken pillows at one end of the lounge and was sobbing, but Jenny did not try to comfort her, believing that she could not, and so she continued: “I put the letter and the photograph into the little old Bible and replaced it. Then I dragged the haircloth trunk back into its dark corner. I was greatly troubled to know whether or not I ought to tell grandmother what I had learned. I asked the advice of my dear teacher and she said: ‘Do not tell at present, Jeanette. If your grandmother does not wish you to know, perhaps it would be wiser to wait until she tells you. Then she told me that she had a college friend living in Waltham, and that she would make inquiries about our family. In time the reply came. Our father’s father and grandfather had been ministers in high standing, philanthropists and scholars. Our father had been the last of the family, and, as they had given all they had to the poor, there was no money to care for us. Oh, Gwynette!”
Jenny touched the other girl ever so tenderly on the shoulder. “How grateful I have been; how very much more I have loved my dear adopted grandparents since I realized what they had saved me from. Had they not taken me into their home, and shared with me the best they had, I would have been sent to a county orphanage, and no one knows to what fate.”
Gwynette was sitting erect, her hands crushingly clasped together. Jenny paused, wondering what she would say. It was a sincere cry of regret. “Oh, to think how ungrateful I have been to that wonderful woman who has given me every advantage and who would have loved me like an own daughter if I had not been so selfish, ever demanding more.”
Gwyn turned and held both hands out to her companion. “Jenny, forgive me. I am not worthy to call you sister. From this hour, forever, let us carry out our father’s last wish. Let us truly love one another.”