I had kept my diamond earrings until the last, but yesterday even those, my last precious treasures, had to be sacrificed. How can I relate to you the story of our disgrace!
A year ago papa failed, and we were obliged to leave our palatial home on Fifth Avenue and betake ourselves to a small hotel on W. Ninth Street. I nearly cried my eyes out. I spent days and nights in weeping over our sad fortunes, and as one by one I was obliged to surrender the darling treasures of happier days I felt that if this were to go on I should either become a hopeless wreck with shattered nerves and end my days in a lunatic asylum, or else that rather than suffer the mental torture which I had endured I should with my own hand take the life which was a curse to me.
Everything has gone from bad to worse, though I have fought against fate with all the passion of desperation. Our friends have deserted us; that is, all the young society which I care about and really need to keep up my spirits and make me cheerful. I can find no congenial society in the class with whom I am doomed to associate, and so I keep my room, and solace my sad hours with works of fiction, which for the time being take me out of myself, and with fancy work, which is the one little link that connects me with my happy past.
But now a crisis has come in papa’s affairs. He is offered a position in Jersey City, and compels us to go with him to this odious place, to live in a second or third rate boarding-house, away from everything that makes life endurable.
I cannot do it. I should simply be burying myself alive. To one of my sensitive temperament the shock would be too great, and I know that I should become but a wreck of my former self.
I have racked my brains and tossed on my sleepless pillow many a night, endeavoring to solve the problem that is before me.
This morning a ray of light dawned upon the gloom which has enshrouded me. I picked up the morning paper and read the delightful announcement of the good fortune which has come to you. My heart throbbed with sympathetic joy, mon amie, to think that in this desolate world at least one whom I loved was completely happy.
The report says that you are soon to go abroad. Like an inspiration the thought came to me, “Oh, if only I could go with her as a companion!” The thought fairly suffocated me. Once the idea of attempting to go as a paid companion, of accepting money for services rendered, no matter how valuable they might be, would have brought the blush to my cheek. But my pride has been humbled, and though even now I could not do it for every one, for you whom I adore it would seem no sacrifice but a privilege.
I could be of invaluable service to you in shopping and in visiting galleries. I speak French perfectly, and could play whist or sing to you when you are tired. I know how to arrange flowers, to design toilettes, to order dinners, and can read aloud without fatigue. I could relieve you of all care, and this you will certainly require, as so many new cares have devolved upon you, and you must be distracted with all the new things you have to order and to attend to.
What steamer shall you take? I like the North German Lloyd best,—don’t you?