Is it necessary to say how this clear-headed and conscientious girl acted upon reading this transparent balderdash? She knew, as well as you and I know, that the whole thing was a clumsy game of her worthy sire to deplete once more the little hoard that had been slowly growing during his absence. She knew that her mother, who had worn her life out trying to support an ornamental husband, was fast failing in health, and might very soon require such attendance as nothing but money could procure. And of course she went directly to the bank, drew out her entire deposit, and sped it on its way to Elias Hanchett, M.D., before the sun went down.
It was nearly a year after the arrival of his first letter when another epistle was received from the absent doctor. Bad news this time—the worst of bad news. He had been stricken down by a terrible malady at a most critical moment in his affairs, and the consequence was that his interests had suffered irretrievably. He might call himself, in short, a ruined man. He felt that his distress of mind, together with the physical anguish of his disease, was more than he could bear up against for many hours longer. It was hard for an old man to die thus among strangers, far from his own hearthstone and the gentle influences that clustered round it. But he should be consoled in his last hour by the reflection that he had always maintained his family liberally, and had tried to be a kind and indulgent husband and father; and he hoped that his daughter, thus left alone in the world without any earthly protector, would not wholly despair, but would strive for his sake to bear up against adversity, and prove herself worthy of the father who had lost his life in trying to serve her in his old age. And so farewell! His eyes were now about to close for the last time upon the scenes of this earth. Signed ELIAS HANCHETT, M.D., with the customary flourish beneath the name, as bravely executed as if the writer might have twenty years of life ahead of him yet. But stay! P.S. Would not his dear daughter, for whom he had sacrificed so much, grant him one last little favor? He had not means enough left out of the sad wreck of his fortune to procure him decent burial. Would she not send him a small sum for that purpose? She might direct it to his own address, for if he were gone it would be received by a friend, who would apply it faithfully according to the directions he should leave. "And now again farewell! And may we meet above!" Signed ELIAS HANCHETT, M.D. Flourish as usual.
I do not believe that Dora Hanchett's honest estimate of this letter was very far different from our own. I am persuaded that she was mentally incapable of being seriously deceived by it. But the heart of woman is the mystery of the universe. In the face of her honest judgment, in the truth of that clear common sense that constituted the strongest trait in her character, this absurd girl went about bemoaning in dead earnest and in the bitterest grief the death of her father. This lasted a week; by which time she had succeeded in convincing her mother, at least, that the affliction was a real one; and that good lady, being finally, as she believed, released from her responsibility, and having no occasion to live longer, quietly and peacefully passed away. And Dora, by the light of this actual sorrow, came after a while to acknowledge to herself that she had been breaking her heart over a fictitious one.
Of course the money had gone on before this time, and she was far from wishing to recall it now. If her father was alive, he was welcome to it, she said, for he could not possibly put it to a worse use than that to which it had been dedicated.
A girl as good as Dora could not be left friendless, whatever domestic affliction she might suffer; and so with all her trouble she had no opportunity to become absorbed in her sorrow. It would have pained her unspeakably if she had been aware that her friends generally, however, so far from inclining to grieve with her grief at the possibility of her father's death, were quite unanimous in the view that such a dispensation would be "the best thing for Dory that ever turned up." For her part, she could not, after all, rid her mind of the apprehension that her father might possibly have been in as serious extremity as his letter represented. And if so, and she neglected to do her utmost to succor him in his need, what peace could she ever find in this world again? In this way she dwelt upon the subject, until at last she convinced herself that her whole duty lay in nothing less than an immediate effort to go to him. If, fortunately, she should find him alive and well, she would gladly share his fortune, however hard it might be, and would never leave him so long as he lived. But if, as she feared, he should prove to be indeed sick and near his end in that wild region, where, she asked, should his daughter be but at his side?
This is the ridiculous way in which such headstrong creatures as this Dora Hanchett are accustomed to meet you when you seek to point out to them the unreasonableness of a line of conduct on which they have set their hearts.
Deaf to all arguments, therefore, Dora shut up her house and set about making preparations for her journey. In the adjoining county, as she had learned, a company of gold-hunters had been organized, and was then on the point of starting for the Sacramento Valley, in which was situated the little town from which her father had last written. Of this company of sixty men she knew but one, and he was a mere boy in years, the youngest of the party. This was Hiram Bridge, familiarly termed Posey in honor of his native county, who four years before had been one of Dora's first pupils in her Clarksville school. She was little more than a girl herself at that time, and Hiram was her biggest boy; and her recollection now of the bond of good-fellowship that soon grew up between herself and the shy, overgrown but not overbright lad relieved her of any hesitation she might otherwise have felt in applying to him to obtain permission for her to accompany his party to its destination.
"Yes, you can go, Miss Hanchett," Posey quietly replied to her appeal.
"But will the rest of the men be willing?" she suggested.
"Doesn't signify," said Posey.