‘And, besides,--why should I hesitate to confess it?--we are poor. I cannot do for Millicent,--I cannot do for myself, though that matters less,--what I would. I don’t know how far my poor child went in her confidences to you to-day. She was agitated,--and she is still agitated,--though I have done all I could to soothe her. She is much affected by your sympathy and generosity; and yet, with the shrinking delicacy which characterises her, she cannot forgive herself for telling you. “I could not help it, mamma,--he was so feeling,” my poor darling says to me, with tears in her eyes. God bless you, dear Mr. Renton! With this timely aid, which I accept as a loan, my Millicent’s poor mother may still be spared to watch over her child. It would have been impossible for me to go, and I tried to hide from my pet the urging of my physicians. Now it is all clear before us. I enclose a memorandum for the amount at five per cent interest; but what interest can ever repay the kind consideration, the ready thoughtfulness? I can never forget it, and neither can Millicent. When I say that we shall leave almost immediately, I but say that we are carrying out your intention. We shall miss you in that strange land. How sweet if we could hope to meet our benefactor among its gay groups! Millicent tells me something about your circumstances, which it seems impossible to believe. But if it should be true, dear Mr. Renton, how sweet it will be to your mind to feel that your little savings, if diverted from their original intention, will yet go to carry out one of the most sacred offices of Christianity,--to save a mother, the sole guide and protector of her innocence, to her only child! ‘Believe me, my dear Mr. Renton, with the sincerest kind regards and good wishes, ‘Yours obliged and most truly, ‘MARIA TRACY.’