“Who she meant I don’t know, nor where she’s gone. I tried to make her stay, but she said, ‘No, I am my own mistress now. Marriage has made me that, if not my age, and I am going away;’ and she went in the stage, and after she was gone I sat down and cried, for I felt I was a little too hard on her, and I could not forget the look on her face as I came in from church, nor the look as I talked to her about the ring and killing her husband. I have no idea where she’s gone, but feel sure she will keep out of harm. She’s been well brought up, and though some of her notions do not suit me, she is thoroughly indoctrinated in the truth, and will come out all right; so my advice is to let her alone for a spell at any rate, and see what she’ll do. “My object in writing this to you is to give you some little insight into the character of the family you are connected with by marriage, and to let you know I don’t take my niece’s part, although it is natural that I should find more excuse for her than you, who probably think it a disgrace to be connected with the _Peppers_. But, if you choose to inquire hereabouts, you’ll find that I am greatly respected and looked up to in the church, and if you ever come this way give me a call, and I will do the same by you. If you feel like it, write to me, if not, not. “Wishing you all consolation in your son’s death, “Yours to command, “JERUSHA AMANDA PEPPER.” Roy read this letter with mingled emotions of disgust and indignation, and finally of tolerance and even kindly feelings, toward the writer, who had commenced with being so hard upon her niece, but had softened as she progressed, and at last had spoken of her with a good deal of interest and even sympathy. “Poor little thing,” he called Edna now, and he longed to take her up in his arms as he would a child, and comfort her. From the tenor of the first part of Miss Pepper’s letter, he could imagine, or thought he could, just how hard, and grim, and stern the woman was, and just how dreary and cheerless Edna’s life had been with her. “I don’t wonder she married the first one that offered,” he said, and then as he recalled the man Dana, who had asked Edna to be his wife, he felt a flush of resentment tinge his cheeks, and his fists clenched with a desire to knock the impudent Dana down. “And it is to such insults as these she is liable at any time; fighting her way alone in the cold, harsh world, though, by Jove! I don’t blame her for leaving that Pepper-corn, goading and badgering her about the ring, and murdering Charlie. I wouldn’t have spent so much as the night there after that; I’d have slept in the dog-kennel first.”