"In Peekskill, as I suppose it is in most places of its size, the young men are quite attentive to the young ladies. While my aunt was very solicitous about my company, I managed to receive about as much attention as the other girls, and, do you know, I never had a beau in my life that Nellie did not try to get away from me.
"Finally, just to bother her, I would tell the young men that if they paid Miss Mason any attention I would have nothing whatever to do with them; that I would cut them squarely. Well, one young fellow, whom I had thus admonished, thought it would be smart to tell the young lady what I had said, and since that day Nellie Mason has not been trying so much to imitate as she evidently has to injure me.
"Soon after I married Richard and came to New York to live, Nellie went home to Lewiston, Maine; and after she had been there a while she wrote me a letter in which she said she had married. I have her letter now. She did not remain long in Lewiston, for the next thing I heard of her she was here in New York.
"She called on me and said she was living with a Mrs. Gilbert, in East Thirteenth Street; that she and her husband had quarreled, and that she had resolved to make her own living, and was then at work in an Insurance office. It is needless for me to say that I did not return the call, but I presume it would have been better for me if I had.
"One evening, about half-past five, about three weeks before we left our old apartments, one of Mr. Stone's most intimate friends called. There was nothing particularly singular or remarkable about the call, for the gentleman often came with Richard and made real homelike visits. He had not been in the house long on this occasion before he said he was delighted to receive my kind letter. Of course, not knowing what he referred to, I promptly demanded an explanation, when he took from his pocket a neat little letter apparently written by me and signed 'Frances,' requesting him to call at 5:30 that day, as I wanted to see him particularly. Did you ever hear the like of that?
"Well, to make matters still more embarrassing, presently in walks Richard with another letter written in a scrawling anonymous hand, in which he was advised to be home by 5:45 as he would find company. The next thing we heard was the money-order affair, and the next was the telegram announcing Mr. Stone's death last night, which nearly killed me; and who knows what will be next?"
The only appropriate words I could command, after Mrs. Stone had finished, were: "Wonderful woman!" I assure you I was unable to state just then whether I referred to Mrs. Stone or Nellie Mason. If the strange story was true, Nellie Mason was wonderfully remarkable. If it was untrue, then Mrs. Richard Stone was the most remarkable character I had ever met. I promised to call again in a day or so, and hastily withdrew to strengthen or unravel the nicely-woven fabric Mrs. Stone had offered.
Richard Stone had acted so much in sympathy with his beautiful wife, that I began to think if she was wrong, Richard could not be right himself; so I determined to know more about him. I called upon the chief officer of the company where he was employed, and confidentially asked him what he knew about Stone.
He told me that Stone came from England with the best kind of written recommendations from several of the oldest established business houses in London and Norwich; and further, that he had been warmly recommended by the Young Men's Association, in New York to which he had been splendidly introduced, and in whom the officers of the association still retained a deep interest. He was a first-rate business man, and he thought there could be no more question about his character than there was about his own.
I told him there were some decidedly singular features about my case; but, of course, they could possibly all be cleared up without leaving a blemish on Stone's character. I thought, under all the circumstances, it would be best to have a frank talk about the matter, and if he still thought Stone was honest and honorable we would say no more about it.