“I shall be sure to find work in a great big city like that,” she thought, as she took her place in a car and sank wearily into a seat, bursting into tears as the whistle blew and the train rushed out of the station, at the thought that she was leaving behind her forever mother, home, and native city—dear old Richmond, on its green, smiling hills—the place where she was born, and where she had spent her eighteen years of life.
She had never known how well she loved Richmond until she felt herself leaving it forever behind her, with all the associations so dear to her heart. Tears blinded her beautiful eyes, and a sort of passionate hatred for the lover who had wrought her so much woe swelled her young heart.
“Oh, did he think of all this when he betrayed me?” she wondered bitterly, and a yearning for revenge came to her, a bitter longing to pay him back in his own coin for all that she was suffering now.
“Heaven will send me the chance, and I will wring his heart as he has tortured mine,” she vowed to herself, with eyes that flashed through her tears, and just then the conductor came along to take up the tickets.
The car was not crowded, and he had time to observe how Pansy’s face was all wet with tears, and how nervously her little hand shook when she presented her ticket.
“Are you ill, miss?” he asked politely. “Can I do anything for you?”
“No, I am not ill; there is nothing I wish, thank you,” she answered; but, as she saw how surprised he looked, she added: “I was only crying because I am leaving my native city forever, to go among strangers. I am an orphan, and must seek work in the West.”
“I should think you could certainly find work in Richmond,” he said; but she shook her head and put her hand to her white throat in such a pathetic way that he knew she was choked with tears.
He turned away with a heart full of pity, thinking of his own pretty daughter at home, and hoping that she might never come to this. The next day he heard that a beautiful young working girl of Richmond had drowned herself in the James River, and his thoughts involuntarily flew to the one who had left Richmond last night, although he did not think of connecting the two together, save as sisters in sorrow.
“There was a tragedy of woe in the beautiful face of that orphan girl,” he thought often, for the memory of her grief did not fade from his mind for some time.