Julia Tinker remained open-mouthed but mute; and the other was puzzled at the want of feeling shown, which he could not account for even as a national trait. “Perhaps there's some mistake,” he said.
“There must be,” answered Julia: “my father hasn't been to sea for a good many years. My father,” she added, with a diffidence indescribably mingled with a sense of distinction,—“my father's in State's Prison. What kind of looking man was this?”
The contributor mechanically described him.
Julia Tinker broke into a loud, hoarse laugh. “Yes, it's him, sure enough.” And then, as if the joke were too good to keep: “Miss Hapford, Miss Hapford, father's got out. Do come here!” she called into a back room.
When Mrs. Hapford appeared, Julia fell back, and, having deftly caught a fly on the door-post, occupied herself in plucking it to pieces, while she listened to the conversation of the others.
“It's all true enough,” said Mrs. Hapford, when the writer had recounted the moving story of Jonathan Tinker, “so far as the death of his wife and baby goes. But he hasn't been to sea for a good many years, and he must have just come out of State's Prison, where he was put for bigamy. There's always two sides to a story, you know; but they say it broke his first wife's heart, and she died. His friends don't want him to find his children, and this girl especially.”
“He's found his children in the city,” said the contributor, gloomily, being at a loss what to do or say, in view of the wreck of his romance.
“O, he's found 'em has he?” cried Julia, with heightened amusement. “Then he'll have me next, if I don't pack and go.”
“I'm very, very sorry,” said the contributor, secretly resolved never to do another good deed, no matter how temptingly the opportunity presented itself. “But you may depend he won't find out from me where you are. Of course I had no earthly reason for supposing his story was not true.”
“Of course,” said kind-hearted Mrs. Hapford, mingling a drop of honey with the gall in the contributor's soul, “you only did your duty.”