"You said you did not care for him; that you never wanted to see him again. Would you go back to him? Would you submit to his ill treatment, his profanity and abuse?"
Esther was silent, and glancing in the mirror, her mistress saw that her eyes were full of tears. At last she said, in a tone of deep sorrow,—
"I'm sorry God heard me say that. I was angry at the bad rum, and I was afraid of being shut up in a cell with him. I—I asked Jesus to put my naughty feelings away. I—I found the place in your prayer-book, ma'am,—I mean the marrying place. It's solemn words, ma'am; I didn't know that marrying was such a solemn thing. I was too young, and I had no mother, and my mates thought it would be fun to be married, and I didn't remember that I should have to stay married whether I liked it or not and so when he praised me and said he loved me best of all the girls in our court, though they all wanted him, I said I'd go to the parson. I had no call, ma'am, to let him say that bad woman was my mother. She was old Nan, the worst woman among them all, but that is over now. I'd die before I'd do so naughty again, but, ma'am, the minister asked me those solemn words, and I said yes, so I've been thinking that," sighing heavily, "'for better for worse, till death us do part,' means that I do belong to him, ma'am and so I—" Her voice was stopped suddenly for she fell on her knees, and with her head hidden in her arms, sobbed without restraint.
Marion's own tears flowed. As she told the story afterward to Mrs. Mitchell and Hepsey, "When I saw her in a perfect abandonment of grief, sobbing her heart out at the recollection of the man who had so abused his trust, I resolved that, if the law could prevent it, she never should live with him again. But at the same moment I felt for her such an increase of respect that folded her in my arms and kissed her."
A few days after this Miss Howard was dressing to go out when Esther came forward, blushing painfully, and holding out an awkwardly folded paper, asked,—
"May I go out, ma'am, to put this into the box at the corner?"
The lady took the letter and glanced her eye over the address, "Joseph Cole, Sing-Sing Prison, Auburn, New York State." The writing was scarcely intelligible, but Marion was not thinking of that. She could not endure the thought that Esther in her childish trust might bind herself irrevocably to his future.
"His sister told me how to write that," murmured Esther, in a hesitating tone. "'T isn't my place, ma'am, to ask you to give your time to it; but if you'll please to read it, and say I may send it to him, I shall be very happy."
This was what Marion wished to do. She seated herself instantly and unfolded the paper, not yet sealed, Esther meanwhile ruffling the edge of her apron as though her life depended on her doing it quickly.
Marion had never perused a letter in which all the rules of grammar and spelling were so wholly set at defiance; but seldom had she read one which touched her heart more. It was very brief, but to the point, and correcting the spelling, read as follows:—