Had the fabled godmother of Cinderilla appeared to her suddenly, she would scarcely have been more bewildered. “Mother,” she screamed again, reading aloud the ‘Pay to the order of Adaline Worthington,’ etc. “What does it mean, and who could have sent it? Isn’t it splendid! Who is Alice Johnson? Oh, I know, that old friend of yours, who came to see you once when I was gone. What does she say? ‘My dear Eliza, feeling that I have not long to live—’ What—dead? Well, I’m sorry for that, but, I must say, she did a very sensible thing sending me a thousand dollars. We’ll go somewhere now, won’t we?” and clutching fast the draft, the heartless girl yielded the letter to her mother, who with blanched cheek and quivering lip read the last message of her friend; then burying her face in her hands she sobbed as the past came back to her, when the Alice now forever at rest and herself were girls together. ’Lina stood a moment, wishing her mother had not cried, as it made it very awkward—then, for want of something better to do took up the letter her mother had dropped and read it through, commenting as she read. “Wants you to take her daughter Alice. Is the woman crazy? And her nurse, Densie Densmore. Say, mother, you’ve cried enough, let’s talk the matter over. Shall you let Alice come? Ten dollars a week, they’ll pay. Five hundred and twenty dollars a year. Whew! We are rich as Jews. It won’t cost half that sum to keep them. Our ship is really coming in.” By this time Mrs. Worthington was able to talk of a matter which had apparently so delighted ’Lina. Her first remark, however, was not very pleasing to the young lady. “As far as I am concerned I would willingly give Alice a home, but it’s not for me to say. Hugh alone can decide it. We must write to him.” “You know he’ll refuse,” was ’Lina’s angry reply. “He hates young ladies. So if it hangs on his decision, you may as well save your postage stamp to New Orleans, and write at once to Miss Johnson that she cannot come, on account of a boorish clown.” “’Lina,” feebly interposed Mrs. Worthington, feeling how inefficient she was to cope with ’Lina’s stronger will. “Lina, we must write to Hugh.” “Mother, you shall not,” and ’Lina spoke determinedly. “I’ll send an answer to this letter myself, this very day. I will not suffer the chance to be thrown away. Hugh may swear a little at first, but he’ll get over it.” “Hugh never swears,” and Mrs. Worthington spoke up at once. “He don’t, hey? Maybe you’ve forgotten when he came home from Frankfort, that time he heard about my dress. As old Sam says, ‘I’ve got a mizzable memory, but I have a very distinct recollection that oaths were thick as hail stones. Didn’t his eyes blaze though!’” “I know he swore then; but he never has since, I’m sure, and I think he is better, gentler, more refined than he used to be, since—since—_Adah_ came.”