"I showed it to him. He did not deny it was hers."
"Deny it was hers! What in the world do you mean, Mr. Heremore? Where did you get it?"
Then Dick, in the best way he could, told the whole story of the box, and gave her the letter to read. When Mary came to the part which said, "Will you love your sister always, let what may be her fate? Remember, always, she had no mother to guide her," she turned her eyes, full of tears, to Dick, saying no words.
"She did not know that it would be the other way," Dick replied to her look, his own eyes hardly dry. "She would have begged for me if she had known that—" farther than this he could not get. Mary put her hands in his, and said earnestly:
"No need for that; her pleading comes just as it should. Will you really be my brother—all wearied, sick, and worn-out as I am? Oh! if this had only come two years ago, I could have been something to you!"
But Dick could not answer a word, He could only keep his eyes upon her face; afraid, as it seemed, that it would suddenly prove all a dream.
But the day wore on and it did not prove less real. The heat and the glaring light were forgotten, or not heeded, while the two sat together and talked of this strange story, and tried to fill up the outlines of their mother's history.
"I feel as if our grandpapa were living, or, if not living, there must be somebody who knows something about him," she said.
"I think I ought to go and see. Mr. Staffs was very particular in urging that."
"I think so; even if you learned nothing, it would be a good thing for you just to have tried."