This hurt Jo cruelly, but she did not speak. Instead she wrote, in her queer, cramped handwriting, to Anderson Law.
It was a stilted, independent letter, for poor Jo was struggling between the dread of losing her self-respect and her fear that Donelle should lose her opportunity.
Law received the letter and read it while young James Norval was in his studio.
"Jim, do you remember that girl that Alice Lindsay discovered up in Canada?" he said; he was strangely moved and amused by Jo's words.
"The little Moses?" Norval was standing in front of an easel upon which rested one of his own pictures, one he had brought for Law's verdict.
"What?" Law stared at Norval.
"Oh! wasn't that the girl that some woman said she had adopted out of a Home?"
"Yes. What of it?"
"Only a joke, Andy. You remember Pharaoh's daughter said she took Moses out of the bulrushes. Don't scowl, Andy; you don't look pretty."
"Listen to this letter, Jim, and don't be ribald." Law read the letter.