Felix wuz a favorite with the company, and though he had not Victor’s genius nor the native gifts of prudence and foresight that he had possessed, his long apprenticeship to sorrow and peril had made him wise and patient.
He wuz helped, too, greatly by the calm fortitude and Christian principle of Cousin John Richard and the fervid devotion of Father Gasperin.
There wuz a rumor that the Government wuz bein’ importuned by one in high authority, and wuz only waitin’ to learn the success of this venture, to send Government vessels over with the freedmen, with help to maintain the poorer ones for a year and get them started in their new life. But it might have been only a rumor. As I said, Victor’s death made a delay in the exodus, and it wuz durin’ those weeks of delay that Genieve received a large packet of law letters.
Her father had died in France, and Genieve had been left his heiress. A goodly sum had been left to this lawyer if he wuz successful in findin’ his child. Perhaps by reason of this the search had proved successful.
Genieve wuz a great heiress, for Monseur De Chasseny had no children by his French marriage—his lawful wife wuz dead. And the memory of the great love of his life wuz with him to the last. In a will made on his death-bed, he left all his large fortune to Genieve, “the child of the only woman he had ever loved.”
So said a letter left in the same package with the will.
This wealth enabled her to do much for the colony, helpin’ them to good schools, good books, good food and clothin’, and the teachin’ and the trainin’ that would make them self-supportin’.
Genieve studied harder than ever, worked harder than ever for the good of her people, after the livin’ Victor passed from her life. The immortal Victor, the saint, the hero Victor, always stood beside her. He would not let her sink into the gloom and inactivity of hopeless sorrow. He nerved her to new activities. He held her hand that wrote stirrin’ appeals, and helpful, encouragin’ words for the New Republic. He inspired the vision that saw it risin’ fair and proud from the ashes of a dead past.
She studied history that she might help make a noble history for the new land; she studied law, and literature, and music, all with this sole ambition of helpin’ her mother’s race.
The children of the colony almost idolized her, and in their love and constant companionship she found her greatest earthly comfort.