The morning train from Albany had thundered through the town, and Mr. Howland was about returning to the hollow, when hasty footsteps were heard in the hall, and in a moment his sister stood before him. She had traveled night and day since leaving Milwaukee, she said, but she didn’t mind it at all, she was so impatient to be at home and tell him what she had heard, and, without so much as untying her bonnet, Miss Elinor continued:
“I told you all the time they were impostors—but men have so little sense. I’m glad I ain’t a man, though if I were, no woman would ever impose on me as that Adelaide has on you. Why, instead of taking music lessons, as she pretends to do, she goes to Springfield after work, and the satchel you more than once carried for her, had in it vests and shirts, and mercy knows what—tell me that wasn’t a wristband I saw under the lounge. I guess I know a wristband. They are just as poor as they can be, and sew for Mr. Lincoln’s store in Springfield, for Mrs. Lincoln’s cousin told me so. I met her in Milwaukee, and when she knew I was from Oakland, she spoke of Adelaide, and asked me if I knew her. I told her yes, and then she asked if she were married yet, saying she hoped she was, for it seemed a pity that a stylish-looking girl like her should be obliged to sew for a living. Of course I questioned her, learning what I’ve told you, and, worse than all the rest, Adelaide made this lady believe that she was going to marry a very wealthy man, who had a most delightful home, with one incumbrance, which she should soon manage to dispose of, and that incumbrance was a dried-up old maid sister! Do you hear that, Richard Howland? A dried-up old maid sister. That means me!” and the highly scandalized lady walked up and down the room, upsetting, in her wrath, both her traveling basket and band-box, which last in a measure diverted her attention, for no woman, whether married or single, can think of anything else when her “best bonnet” is in danger.
Picking up the box, and assuring herself that its contents were unharmed, she continued:
“Why don’t you say something, Richard? Are you not surprised at what I have told you?”
“Not particularly,” he answered, and coming to her side he repeated to her the story he had heard from Adelaide’s own father, so long supposed to be dead.
“The trollop! the jade!” ejaculated Miss Elinor. “I understand her perfectly. She wished to keep up appearances, and make her father stay away until she became your wife, and you couldn’t help yourself. Dried-up old maid, indeed! I’ll teach her to call me names. But what of Mr. Warren and little Alice? I’ll go to them at once,” and notwithstanding her recent fatiguing journey, the energetic woman started for the hollow, saying to her brother, who accompanied her, “I am determined upon one thing, Richard. If Mr. Warren dies, Alice will live with us and have the best chamber, too. Poor little creature, how she must have suffered.”
They found both Mr. Warren and Alice asleep, but Miss Elinor’s kiss awoke the latter, who uttered a cry of joy at the sight of her friend and benefactress. The sick man, too, ere long, awoke, but only to doze again, and as the day wore on he continued in a state of stupor, from which it was difficult to rouse him. Just before the sun was setting, however, consciousness returned, and he asked for Alice, who in a moment was at his side. Winding his arm lovingly around her neck, he prayed that the God of the fatherless would not forsake her when she should be alone.
“I am going from you, Alice,” he said, “going to your mother, who has waited for me all day, and the pain of death would scarce be felt did I know what would become of you.”
“Tell him, Richard,” whispered Miss Elinor, and advancing to the bedside, Mr. Howland said: