Year: 1861

could never 60 to him or his hateful sisters.


{" To my youngest niece, Catherine Au-
gusta Taylor, l bequeath my letters and
journal, which she will find with the family
portraits and gcncalogy in the mahogany
bureau. The bureau and its contents to DO
hers"


How full and grand my name sounded. 1
resolved would never be called Katy again,
but Augusta. l repeated it-Catharine
Augusta. was sure Miss Muloch could
have found us sublime roll and as kingly n
tread in it as in the hackneyed +" Leonora." I"


Hortense had smiled, and had seen Al
ices bosom heave just a little under her
black dress, when their names were read.
thought Hortensc was hard-hcartcd, and
Alice hypocritical, and determined that
when mine was read, would bo looking
pensivcly away and seem not to hear. So |
leaned my head on my hand, ond fixed my
eyes out of the window, but when it came
the dimples were never deeper in my checks
before. Then crimsoncd, and all in hot
glow began playing hicroslyphics on the
carpet with the toe of my slipper. And
when l dared to look up, found Sarah and
Eliza both looking steadily at me. o dear !
I wished there had been no such thing as q
will.


But then the bureau. Next to the organ
melodeon, it had been my idol in tho old
house heavy, massive, carved into scrpents
and Clcopatras, silvcr-nobbed aud nailed,
with curious little odd drawers of sandal wood
that scented the whole room when they were
opened. remember once smell of sandal
wood through the house for days. after Aunt
Ruth and mother had sat before 1t all one
August morning, taking drawer after draw
or out and emptying the contents in their
laps.


Then the portraits, laid lovingly one above
the other, in the two deep drawers at the
bottom; the letters that she had written and
received when she was young like me her
journal that had longed to see for years, and
the gencaloges, different hand for each
generation.


found these letters, yellow and fragrant,
as everything was in the quaint old heir loom.
They were tied with fresh white ribbon, as
though Aunt Ruth had read them over be-
fore she died.


Ialways had vague idea Of some great
sacrifice that Aunt Ruth had made when
she was young, and l learned 1t all here in
letters and manuscript. But l cannot tell
you now, only that she left her beautiful
home and sought employment in one of those
laundering, dismal mills that make one
dizzy and sick at heart. You cannot under
stand it with all their wealth and pride.


But it is for the sake of Adelaide Conant's
story that am going to copy these old let
tiers. A name always seemed significant Of
the life which it indiydualizes to me, and
Adelaide is one Of the most prophetic. There
is pride and suffering, an anguish and a
sitting in it that no other possesses, not even
the old sin-stained name OF Lucretia.


l., DECEMBER 10, ls-


DEAR HoRrENsE.-Do not worry for me,
poor child. You know how strong l am,
and how we'll always. And this is just the
discipline needed. shall come out of the
fro, tried but purified, by-and-by, darling.
| shall come home and take the old mansion
house, while you will be gone to make an
other home happy. am learning to live
without you now. So shall not miss you
so much then.


Write often-ycry, very often-Hortensc.
Your letters arc oil the companionship i
have. | CANNOT mako friends Of those
around me. Sometimes I am lonely, but
then you know used to be sad at times in
our own dear home, so what else could eI-
pect among strangers? =.


But must tell you Of a girl whose loom
is next to mine and while she is weaving
cloth out ofSouthern cotton, you may weave,
my little poetess, her story all out of your
wonderful Imagination, for there MUST be
something strange in the story Of her young
life.


wish you could see her face. 1t is one
of those that one always fancics corresponds
to an alto voice. 1t is oval, pale, with
pale stnightened lips that tell plainly OF
constant struggling and suffering restrained,
beautiful chin and throat. She has a
great deal of dark hair, waving into gold,
which she puts up in heavy rolls under a
loose meshed net Of blue. But her eyes,
IIortense-they are perfect-decp, full, heav-
ily shaded, and heavily browcd, the lids,
dcad-whito and dropping, and she seems Oft
cner to be looking a'ray of than anywhere
else. don't know whether they are grey
or brown, and they may be blue the pupils
grow so large, and the lashes are 30 long,
besides, you only look and wonder at the cI-
preston, aud never think Of the color.


Her name is Adelaide Conant. She goes
and comcs-gocs and comos-day after day,
and never smile, never a glow, never
spring in her weary walk, and the eye lids
grow deader white each day. Ask mother
what 1t is to have the heart break in silence,
dear Hortcnsc. and ask her II the young and
pure ever suffer so, and whence tho strength
to bear it so long comes, too.


o Hortense. 1 do so long to comfort her,
but she will not; Rachael mourning for her
children You thought that my cross was
a heavy one when left home, but hers must


-