“This has disturbed us,” she said. “But it should not. I think the check will mean nothing at all. It will make no difference to you or me. You and I have been happy so far and we can continue to be. You will always be my little girl.”
“I know, Adee, I know.” The tears would have fallen, had not Beth by pure force of will kept them back. Her lips trembled so that she could not speak. She was silent a moment, until she was able to control herself. Then she said again, “I know, I know, Adee, that you will always want me for your little girl; but it is dreadful to have no people of your own.”
Eliza could not debate that. It was true, and could not be disputed. She put her arm about Beth and drew her close. Thus they sat without saying a word for a long, long time. The log in the grate burned out. Then Eliza broke the silence.
“Go to bed now, Beth. I must attend to some work before I come up.”
Beth obediently arose, kissed Adee good-night and left the room. She went to bed, but could not sleep. She could hear Adee moving about in the room below. When it grew quiet, Beth closed her eyes. She was yet wide awake, but she could see plainly a picture that had come to her again and again for as long as she could remember. It was a little white bed in which she herself lay, and a beautiful woman with flowers in her hair and a long, soft, shimmering gown stood over her. “That is something that I saw often before I came to Adee’s,” she told herself. “It is so clear. Always the woman’s face slips away. I cannot see it.”
Meanwhile Eliza in the room below strengthened herself to do her duty. She wanted to keep Beth—oh, how much she wanted her; but if she could find out from where she came, it was only right, for the child’s sake, to do so. If Beth had kin living, it was Eliza’s duty to do everything to find them, even if her own heart-strings were torn to shreds in doing so.
After reaching this decision, she went to her writing desk and wrote to the baggage agent of that particular road, at Baltimore. She told him the circumstances of the check and asked him to spare no pains to find out where it came from or where the trunk was now.
“There may be letters or clothing in the trunk which will lead us to her people,” she told herself as she sealed the letter.
Neither she nor Beth could sleep much that night. They were two sorry-looking individuals the following morning. They were heavy-eyed, tired and listless. They had little to say at the breakfast table. They had worn themselves out with lying awake and letting their minds dwell on the matters which lay nearest their hearts.
There is an old adage that “troubles never come singly.” Better change it to suit the new philosophy of the day, “Joys never come singly.” Sometimes lives may move serenely on for months and months, or even years. They are like a broad stretch of level plain. They would grow monotonous after a time. The finest are lands interspersed with valleys and mountains. So it is with life—here the valley of humiliation, there the mountain of joyful exultation.