"On Board the Mamaroneck, }
July 20th, 189—. }"My Dearest Friends:—On the eve of a calamity that means nothing less than death, I write to you and commend to your care my beloved daughter Lulu.
"In my will, made some time ago, I left the remainder of a much depleted fortune to my daughter, and made my lawyer, Mr. Stanley, of Rosemont, her guardian. But latterly I have questioned the wisdom of my action in this matter. I am not certain of the man's probity. What if he prove unjust to my daughter, faithless to my charge? In the light of these doubts and fears I revoke that will, and hereby declare this my last will and testament.
"To you, Paul Winans, whom I admire as the soul of honor and rectitude, and to your wife, the noblest of living women, I leave in trust my daughter and her fortune, the former a priceless jewel, the latter less than it should be, for I have lost heavily in speculations; but there still remains the splendid estate at Ocean View, inherited from my aunt, my wife's jewels, worth twenty thousand dollars, and some United States bonds to the value of fifteen thousand dollars. All these are unincumbered by any debts, and are in the Rosemont Bank, unless removed ere this by Mr. Stanley, who, in case he has done so, will place them in your charge for my daughter. Until she marries let her home be with you, and let her share, I pray you, in the tender love you lavish on your own dear children. Once I dreamed that the attachment between her and Earle might culminate in a union that would bring both of them great happiness. Ladybird's own folly wrecked my hopes. Tell Earle to forgive her. She was but a willful child then, but she had a heart of gold.
"But time presses, for danger looms immediately before the doomed passengers of the Mamaroneck. For two weeks we have been sailing among a floe of icebergs, fifty in number, and our destruction is inevitable. It is a ghastly fleet of death. We have no chance of escape, for the berg nearest to us now will prove our destruction. It is estimated at fifteen miles in length and seven hundred feet in height. We have resigned ourselves to death with brave hearts.
"I shall commit this letter to the sea in a sealed bottle, praying Heaven that it may reach your hands. To all your lovely family, and to my beloved daughter, I leave all my heart, and hope to meet you all hereafter in that better land where I shall rest after being hurled violently from earth-life by the approaching horror.
"Bruce Conway."
To the letter were appended as witnesses the names of the Mamaroneck's captain and several passengers, well-known New Yorkers. There could be no doubt of its authenticity, and all hope was at an end. Since the writing of that letter months had elapsed, and there remained no longer a doubt of Ladybird's orphanage.
Lawyer Stanley, who was preparing to make a great bluster over the abduction of his ward, was speedily cowed when confronted with this unexpected testimony from the dead. He was only too glad to make terms with Senator Winans for silence as to his villainy by making restitution of the fortune he had stolen from Ladybird, including the jewels in which Aura had strutted her little day on the social stage. The schemer was foiled and had to turn her attention to other plans for making a rich marriage.
And what of Ethel?—beautiful Ethel, who had dreamed of wearing a coronet on her haughty brow, but who after all would only be the bride of an English gentleman of small fortune and high birth!
Only God and Ethel knew of the night in which she did battle with her own heart, going over and over in her mind Arthur's words, half-gay, half-earnest:
"You have only three days in which to decide whether it was the man or the title you wished to marry."
The words rang in her ears all night, and his look was always before her eyes.
It did not take three days for her to decide. Twelve hours were long enough.
When he came for his usual morning call next day, Ethel met him alone in a pretty little room where they often sat together.
She had never looked more beautiful, but she was very, very pale, so much so that as he touched her slender hand he exclaimed anxiously: