Nevada County picayune., 1889-11-13
DORA'S CONFESSION.

It sounds like a grand place. bu, it wasn't grand at all. only ruin. ous old brick house standing behind row of scraggy poplar trees on q dreary stretch of seashore, where the rocks broke the tide into white sheets of foam when it thundered up twice a day, and the very shrubs in the garden were sprinkled with salt spray when the wind came from the east.
 Here, all alone, except for a deaf old man who came to work in the garden and bring coal and water, lived Mrs. Cadgett, my father S cousin, and hither l had been sent to take care. of her when she was stricken down with rheumatic fever. Jenny, my elder sister, had refused to leave New York. "Just when I'm getting along so nicely in my art school" said she; and Georgiana had laughed at the idea. Me shut myself up at Tide Hall like clam in its shell! Not while the Euterpe sociables are going on," And my father aud mother had decided that Dora must go. Dora was generally the victim of the family, and there was nothing for it but for Dora to submit
 And besides" l could hear my mother whisper to my father, it will be great thing to get out of Jacks way for the present."
 She thought l didn't hear it, but l did.
 Poor Jack, He was, in his way, as much of victim as 1 was. It really wasn't Jacks fault that the officers of the bank where he was employed declared that he had no financial talent. Nothing seemed to go right with Jack. My father called him a rolling stone who would gather no moss. My mother said he was thor oughly inefficient. Jenny and Georgy laughed at him, and won dered what Dora could possibly see in him. But l liked him, and I couldn't help it.
 So when Mrs. Cadgett's summons came l thought l might as we'll be unhappy at Tide Hall as on Twenty seventh street.
 had plenty to do. All the house. work, except what Old Owen could do, fell to my share, and my old rel ative required endless waiting on. But then, when she was in her more genial moods, she would tell me the history of her old tapistries and an tlque furniture, show me her jewel casket, and even permit me to clasp around my neck certain old neck lace, stained purple with the glow of amethysts, and outlined around with tiny white diamonds.
 "lt has been in the Cadgett fam fly for hundred and fifty years, said she. My husbands niece, Jemima Cadgett, expects to inherit it, but it is mine to leave to whom l please. And though Jemima wants my jewels, she isn't willing to come here and live with me !'
 Nor was the amethyst necklace all of the Cadgett jewels. There was a solitaire diamond as large as a cherry stone, set in ring. There was an odd cameo brooch and pair of sleeve buttons of pigeons blood' rubies, and a quaint little dagger with it's hilt incrusted in small bril- liants. was never tired of looking at these trinkets.
 "les, child, yes, they're pretty
 
 enough" Mrs. Cadgett had said, but what use are they to an old wo- man like me, 1 sometimes think it isn't safe to keep them here in this solitary place, and only two women in the house. Only to be sure, no- body knows of them!''
 Are they very valuable, Aunt Cadgett?" asked l, for hy that name she had bidden me to call her. ''They're worth sl ,000 at the very least" said she.
 So that one night when mascu- line figure merged out of the flying spray and deepening twilight close to the back door, l gave a great start. Owen had trudged to his