When she heard that her sister’s husband was dead, she wrote her a letter expressing her sympathy, and offering to go to her in case she could in any way comfort or console her. To this letter no answer came, but a year after, Mrs. Heyford was surprised at receiving a call from her sister, who came in quietly, and unattended by carriage or servant. She had married a second time, and was now Mrs. Freeman Burton, of Madison Square. Knowing that her sister was in New York, she had found her out, not to renew acquaintance, but rather to prevent it. She was very frank and open, and said what she had to say in a manner which left no doubt as to her meaning. “Their paths in life were very different,” she said. “As the wife of Mr. Freeman Burton she was entitled to, and should take, the very first place in society, and as her sister was situated so differently, it would be unpleasant for them to meet each other often, and they might as well make up their minds to it first as last. She should come occasionally to see Mrs. Heyford, but should not feel badly if her calls were not returned, and she greatly preferred that Mrs. Freeman Burton should not be known as the sister of Mrs. William Heyford, who lived on the upper floor of a tenement house far down town, and made dresses for a living.” That was decisive. The sisters never met again, and when at Christmas time Mrs. Freeman Burton sent a check for one hundred dollars to Mrs. William Heyford, it was promptly returned, and the intercourse ended entirely when Mrs. Heyford died, as she did, not long after. The husband sent a paper containing a marked notice of the death to Mrs. Freeman Burton, and a second time that lady mounted the three flights of stairs, and knocked at No. ——. But the rooms were shut up; the child Georgie was with her father’s friends, and Mrs. Freeman Burton stole back to her fashionable house, and cried all the morning over the memory of other days, when she and her dead sister had been the world to each other.
Six months later, and she received another paper containing a marked paragraph. Mr. Heyford had married again, and lived now on Varick street, whither Mrs. Burton ventured to go, crying over the little Louise, who had a look like the dead sister, and appearing far more friendly toward the second Mrs. Heyford than she had toward the first. Still, there was no wish expressed for further intercourse, and the families for years knew nothing of each other except through the little presents of books and clothes which were occasionally sent from Madison Square to the little Louise, and which Mrs. Heyford kept.
When Georgie was thirteen, she heard that her aunt had gone abroad, and in the exciting scenes of the ensuing years which followed, she almost forgot the existence of such a relative until a letter came from her, saying she had returned to New York and reopened her house, and was coming in a few weeks to Chicago to find her dear niece.
“I have been a very proud, wicked woman,” she wrote, “but I hope I am trying to do better, and wish to make some amends for my treatment of my poor sister by being kind to her child.”
This was the secret of the whole. Mrs. Burton did believe herself a better woman, and perhaps she was. An ardent admirer of Dr. Pusey, she had in her the elements which made her afterwards a devoted Ritualist, and she wanted to do something which should prove her reform to herself. Upon inquiry in the neighborhood where she had left her sister’s family she could learn nothing of them, so completely had they dropped out of memory. Remembering at last the name of Mr. Heyford’s former employer, she went to him and heard that her brother-in-law was dead, and the family in Chicago; that was all the man could tell her. Of Georgie’s marriage he knew nothing. Mr. Heyford died years ago, he said, and he had taken the boy Jack into his employ until he went West, since which time he had heard nothing from him.
In this dilemma, Mrs. Burton wrote to Georgie, directing to Jack’s care, and then waited the result. For days the letter lay unclaimed, and then appeared among the list of advertised in one of the daily papers. It caught Jack’s eye, and he immediately went for it and carried it to Georgie, who counted it the brightest day of her life when her aunt came to their humble home, and offered to adopt her as her daughter and give her every advantage which the heiress of Mrs. Freeman Burton ought to have. There was no hesitancy on Georgie’s part. Dearly as she loved little Annie, she loved ambition more, and said at once, “I will go.”
To Jack’s suggestion that she tell her aunt of her marriage, at least, she turned a deaf ear. No one must know that. To go to New York as a widow with a child would seriously mar her plans, and then in the winning, fascinating way she knew so well how to use, she persuaded Jack into taking an oath that he never would reveal her secret to any living person unless she first gave him permission to do so. From her step-mother a promise of silence was all she could obtain, but she knew Mrs. Heyford well enough to feel sure that she was safe; and casting the past behind her, she said good-by to Jack, her mother, and Annie, and went with her aunt, who had no suspicion that the beautiful young creature, who seemed so soft, and gentle, and innocent, had a hidden history, from which she would have shrunk in dismay.
What Mrs. Burton hated she hated cordially, and what she loved she loved as cordially, and she lavished upon her niece all the affection which she had withheld from her sister and both her husbands.
At first she had her taught at home under her own eye, and then when she felt that she had acquired a little of the polish and knowledge of the world, which would be expected from Mrs. Freeman Burton’s daughter, she sent her to a fashionable boarding-school, from which she emerged a finished young lady, and became a belle at once. Her after career is so well known to the reader that it is useless to repeat it here, though Jack told Maude of the deep love there had always existed between his sister and the little Annie, who worshipped her as some superior being; “and I loved her, too,” he said, as he finished the sad story, to which Maude had listened wonderingly, “loved her as few brothers have ever loved their sisters. I knew she had many and glaring faults, and sometimes in my anger I was almost desperate in my feelings toward her, but a touch of her hand, a tone of her voice, or a beseeching glance of her eye, had power to quiet me at once, and I would almost have walked over burning coals for her sake, when in her softest mood. I knew, too, that she loved me,—honestly, truly loved me,—and now that she is gone it is a comfort to remember it, for there were times when I was very harsh with her. Poor Georgie; in many things she was a splendid woman, and though she greatly erred, I feel that at the last she was sorry for it and repented most sincerely, and I believe she is in heaven now, with Annie and my mother.”
There were tears in Jack’s eyes, and his voice shook so for a few minutes that he could not go on with his story; but after a little he continued, and told Maude about the burglar at Oakwood, and why he was going to Scotland. It was on a mission for Georgie; and Maude entered heart and soul into it, and would scarcely let him rest a day in England, so anxious was she to find the Janet among the heather hills, and the fatherless little bairns. They found them at last,—a rosy-cheeked, brown-haired little woman, and two fair young children with her, one clinging to her dress behind, and peeping shyly out as the strangers came in, and the other turning his sightless eyes toward them. Their errand was soon told; and when Jack saw how bitterly poor Janet wept, he felt that Henry Morton had been a kind, loving husband to her, even if in secret he had done her wrong. After arranging about the money which Georgie had sent to the widow, who supposed it came from her husband, Jack and Maude repeated their offers of assistance whenever it was necessary; and then promising to see Janet again before returning to America, he bade her good-by, and started on their tour through Europe.