What she said was as follows:
“Forrest House, July 14th.
“Mr. Everard Forrest:
“Dear Sir:—Nobody knows I am writing to you, but your mother has been worse for a few days, and keeps talking about you even in her sleep. She did not say send for you, but I thought if you knew how bad she was, you would perhaps come home for a part of your vacation. It will do her so much good to see you. I am very well and your father too. So no more at present.
“Yours respectfully,
“Rosamond Hastings.
“P. S.—Miss Beatrice Belknap has come home from New York, and had the typhoid fever, and lost every speck of her beautiful hair. You don’t know how funny she looks! She offered me fifty dollars for mine to make her a wig, because it curls naturally, and is just her color, but I would not sell it for the world: would you? Inclosed find ten dollars of my very own money, which I send you to come home with, thinking you might need it. Do not fail to come, will you?
“Rosamond.”
Everard read this letter twice, and smoothed out the crisp ten-dollar bill, which was carefully wrapped in a separate bit of paper. It was not the first time he had received money in his sore need from the girl, for in a blank-book, which he always carried in his pocket, were several entries, as follows: “Jan. 2, from Rosamond Hastings, five dollars: March 4th, two dollars: June 8th, one dollar,” and so on until the whole amount was more than twenty dollars, but never before had she sent him so large a sum as now, and there was a moisture in his eyes and his breath came heavily as he put it away in his purse, and said:
“There never was so unselfish a creature as Rossie Hastings. She is always thinking of somebody else. And I am a mean, contemptible dog to take her money as I do; but then, I honestly intend to pay her back tenfold when I have something of my own.”