CHAPTER VI. LETTERS. No. 1. _Mrs. David West’s Letter._ “MY DEAR RICHARD: “Your package of money and little note, sent by Miss Dora Freeman, was brought to me with a line from the young lady by Mr. Randall’s colored servant Peter. I know you could not afford to send me so much, and I wish you had kept a part for yourself. Surely, if the commandment with promise means anything,—and we know it does,—you, my son, will be blessed for your kindness to your widowed mother, as well as your unselfish devotion to those who have been, one the innocent, the other the guilty, cause of so much suffering. God reward my boy—my only boy as I sometimes fear. Surely if Robert were living he would have sent us word ere this. I have given him up, asking God to pardon his sin, which was great. “And so the debt is paid at last! Dear Richard, when I read that I shed tears of gratitude and thanksgiving that you were free from a load you never should have borne. It was a large sum for you to earn and pay in less than seven years, besides supporting me and Robin. He grows dearer to me every day, and yet I seldom look at him without a great choking sob rising to my throat. He is like his mother, and I loved her as if she had been my daughter. O Anna, lost darling, was she as pure and sinless when she died as when she crept into my arms and whispered of her newly found hope in Him who can keep us all from sin? God only knows. Alas! that her end should be wrapt in so dark a mystery; and ten times alas! that any one should be malignant enough to blame you, who had well-nigh died when the trouble fell upon us. “And so you fear you are more interested in this Dora than you ought to be, or rather that she is far too good for you. “She must be very, very good, if my boy be not worthy of her. “Yes, the Randalls are very grand, fashionable people, as you may know from the fact that the Verners and Strykers took them up at once. I don’t know what influence they may have over Dora; not a bad one, I hope. I think I saw her the other night riding by on horseback, in company with Bell Verner. It was too dark to see her distinctly, but I heard Miss Verner say, in reply evidently to some remark, ‘I never trouble myself to know or inquire after any one out of our set,’ and then they galloped on rapidly. As I am not in Miss Verner’s ‘set’ she will not probably bring Dora to see me, but I have obviated that difficulty by writing her a note and inviting her to call on me. Did I do right? I am anxious to see her, for a mother can judge better than her son of what is in woman. “Yours affectionately, “HELEN WEST.” “By the way, did you know that Mr. Randall was the purchaser of West Lawn, our old home?