Upon the garment uppermost there was a small pin, in the form of a key, with a tiny diamond in the thumb-piece, which attracted his interest for a moment.
“Pshaw!” the man impatiently ejaculated. “I might have saved my time and trouble; this trumpery doesn’t amount to anything. The things are doubtless some of Allison’s baby-clothes, which her mother wished to preserve for her. Bah!”
He was upon the point of closing the box, when a second thought prompted him to turn it upside down, whereupon, as the clothing slipped out, two sealed envelopes rattled out upon the table.
“Aha! this begins to be more interesting!” exclaimed the man eagerly, a curious look leaping into his shrewd eyes. He tore open the envelopes, one of which contained quite a bulky enclosure; the other but a single half-sheet of paper, with some careless writing on one side.
This latter John Hubbard read first, and a look of astonishment overspread his face while doing so.
“Well! well! here is romance worth reading!” he muttered, in a wondering tone, as he dropped the paper and took up the closely written sheets of the other missive and began to puruse them.
He seemed turned to stone as he read.
“My Dear Husband,” the communication began, “I have a confession to make to you, and I am wondering if you will ever forgive me when you learn the nature of it. I am dying, or I fear that I should not have the courage to make it even now; but I dare not go out of the world weighed down with this, the only secret I have ever kept from you, and with a living lie upon my conscience. It is an awful secret, Adam, and you will be shocked to your soul when you read it. Allison is not our own child, my husband; I do not even know whose child she is. There the truth is out at last, and, oh! my dear, my dear, I am trying to imagine how you will receive this dreadful revelation. Why did I deceive you so? How does it happen that our darling is not our very own? you will ask. Ah! it is a long, sad story, but you shall have every detail, and then judge me as you will. You remember that when you sailed for Europe, before our own little one came, I went to F—— to remain with my sister Nannie. Adam, that little one died at its birth; but no one knew it save Nannie, Sarah—her servant—and I. I had no physician, for baby came unexpectedly in the midst of a terrible tempest, and Nannie took care of me; but, oh! I was heartbroken when my darling died, and I grieved so knowing how terribly you also would be disappointed, my sister feared that you would lose me also. And now I will tell you how strangely Allison was sent to take the place of the child we lost. How dreadful it seems that hearts who so yearn for these darlings are ruthlessly deprived of them, while other children are remorselessly deserted, and left to the doubtful charity of a cold world.”
Then there followed a full account of the incidents which have already been related in the prologue to our story, and which it would be wearisome to the reader to have repeated here.