“I do not need to recall to your memory the last night that we spent in your house in Yonkers. It must be as fresh to you as it is to me. You taunted us both with our poverty and dependence. You drove her to desperation by your unjust accusations and your heartless language. She could not endure that kind of a life any longer, and she knew that I also was anything but happy; so she came to me, told me the secret of her success as an author, and of the income which her book bade fair to bring her, and begged of me to go with her to share her substance, asking in return only the comfort of congenial companionship and the protection which my presence would give her. I was sorely tempted, as I have told her, to confess the part I had been playing, and proclaim her my heiress on the spot. But I thought, considering all things, it would be better to wait until she was through with school, while I wanted to study her a little more closely before committing my all to her. She has stood the test most nobly. She has been the light of our home. She has labored early and late to minister to my comfort and happiness, and now she is going to reap her reward. Everything that I can do for her to make her life bright, I shall do while I live, and when I am gone, she will have the fortune which, under different circumstances, would have been mostly yours.”
Mrs. Richards was pallid with anger, mortification, and bitter disappointment when Mr. Rosevelt concluded.
It was a terrible blow to her to lose this great fortune, and remorse for her heartless treatment of her uncle was gnawing keenly at her heart-strings.
Mr. Richards had met with heavy losses in his business of late, and it was only by straining every nerve, calculating, and contriving, that she and Josephine had been able to come to Newport at all that season, and it was simply maddening to think that Star, whom she had so disliked from the first, should have won, by little acts of kindness, what she would have spared no pains to secure had she once suspected the truth.
“Well, miss, you have played your cards very cleverly, haven’t you?” she finally found breath to ejaculate, and turning with blazing eyes upon the fair girl who, all unwittingly, had usurped her place in her uncle’s affection and will.
Mr. Rosevelt’s face grew stern.
“She certainly has, Ellen,” he said, before Star could speak, even had she wished to do so, “especially as she could not, by any means, have known that there was anything worth winning by her acts of devotion and self-denial. And now let me tell you, that true kindness and sympathy will always win, where arrogance and pride will only gain contempt, and lead to disappointment and regret.”
“Uncle Jacob, you cannot mean what you have said. Surely you will not discard those of your own blood, your kin, for the offspring of a stranger!” Mrs. Richards said, appealingly.
Mr. Rosevelt looked down at Star with a tender, tremulous smile.
“The offspring of a stranger!” he repeated, softly; then added: “Ellen, there is a stronger bond uniting this dear child to me than ever bound me to either of my brother’s children.”