Kathleen's Diamonds; or, She Loved a Handsome ActorMiller, Alex. McVeigh, Mrs.
Philosophy
Kathleen's Diamonds; or, She Loved a Handsome Actor
Miller, Alex. McVeigh, Mrs.
Fiction
Drawing his chair close to hers, he half-whispered:
"She was my cousin. She has been dead many years."
"Her name?" exclaimed Kathleen, excitedly, and he lifted a warning hand.
"Not so loud. Grandma might hear," he said; then, answering the puzzled
look in her eyes, he added, softly:
"It was grandma's youngest child--her only daughter, and she met such a
tragic fate that it nearly broke her mother's heart. Even now she can
not bear to talk of her. We never speak her name, because it makes our
hearts ache."
"It was Zaidee--Zaidee Franklyn," murmured the girl.
"How did you know?" in astonishment.
"No matter. Tell me all about her," answered Kathleen, whose memory had
returned to her as by a flash of lightning at sight of that lovely face.
"There is little to tell," he replied. "My poor cousin's story is short
and tragic, like her life. My grandmother had but two children, a son
and a daughter. The son, my father, died years ago, but Zaidee, his
petted young sister, died years before--died, alas! by her own hand."
She shivered like one in a chill, and he said:
"Was it not horrible? She was so young, so lovely, and she had
everything, it seemed, to make her happy. But this is her story: When
she was barely sixteen, a rich man from Boston married her and took
her away from her simple home to his grand, rich one. She loved her
handsome husband very dearly, and seemed to be wildly happy. Her people
did not hear from her often, but she sent this picture and many gifts
to her mother. In a year she had a little daughter, but she did not
invite grandma to go and see the child. Vincent Carew was rich and
great, and very proud, so the Franklyns believed that he was trying to
break his young wife off entirely from her past. The Franklyns were
proud, too, in their way. They resented it; and so the communication
between the two families almost ceased, until, suddenly, like a clap of
thunder, came the news that the young wife had committed suicide!"
"Why?" she gasped.
"We do not know. It was a profound mystery even to her husband. But
it broke my grandfather's heart. He died in less than a week after
the news came. Grandma came, then, to live with us at River Cottage.
My mother died in a few years after, then my father. We two--grandma
and I--are the last of the family unless my cousin, Kathleen Carew,
Zaidee's child, is yet living. That we do not know. We wrote several
times. No answer came, and we gave up the hope of ever knowing the
daughter of the proud Vincent Carew."
"And she has never written to you?" asked the girl, in wonder.
"Never," he replied.
"There must be some mistake," she faltered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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