"If there ain't some way found to keep Miss Haye's eyes from cryin', she won't have 'em to do anything else with. And she'll want 'em, some day."
Clam, like Elizabeth of old, having nobody else to speak to, was sometimes driven to speak to the nearest at hand.
"Is she cryin', now?" said Karen.
"I don' know what you'd call it," said Clam. "'Tain't much like other folks' cryin'."
"Well there's a letter Anderese fetched — you'd better take it to her as soon as it'll do. Maybe it'll do her good."
"Where from?" said Clam seizing it.
"Anderese fetched it from Mountain Spring."
"Now I wish 'twas — but it ain't! —" said Clam. "I'll take it to her anyhow."
Elizabeth knew that it wasn't, as soon as she took it. The letter was from the gentleman who had been her father's lawyer in the city.
Mannahatta, Sept. 26, 1817.