How disturbed she was when she found that nought was left save the simple wants of the young girl who, with a breaking heart had penned the lines, and who now lay so still beneath a Kentucky rift of snow!
“Let’s see,” and taking the mutilated sheet, Dr. Richards read the “Wanted, by a young unfortunate married woman.”
“That unfortunate may mean a great deal more than you imagine,” he said, in order to quiet his sister, who quickly rejoined,
“Yes, but she distinctly says married. Don’t you see, and I had really some idea of writing to her, or at least I think I had, now that ’tis too late.”
“I’m sorry I was so careless, but there are a thousand unfortunate women who would gladly be your maid, little sister. I’ll send you out a score, if you say so, either with or without babies,” and John laughed, as with the utmost nonchalance he smoked the cigar lighted with the name of Adah Hastings!
“Has any thing of importance occurred in this slow old town?” he inquired, after Anna had become reconciled to her loss. “Has there been any desirable addition to Snowdon society?”
“Yes,” returned Anna. “A Mrs. Johnson, who is every way cultivated and refined, while Alice is the sweetest girl I ever knew. You have a rare pleasure in store in forming their acquaintance.
“Whose, the old or the young lady’s?” John asked, carelessly knocking the ashes from the end of his cigar.
“Both,” was Anna’s reply. “The mother is very youthful in her appearance. Why, she scarcely looks older than I do, and I, you know, am thirty-two.”
As if fearful lest her own age should come next under consideration, Miss Eudora hastened to say,