thought that that gentleman had only one side to his character, it
is as well for the reader to know what was in the letter. It ran
as follows:--

Dear Mrs. Gordon,

I am writing to you about a most important matter. Colonel Selwyn
is dead, and my daughter has come out from England. I don't know
anyone to take charge of her except yourself. I am an old man now,
and set in my ways, and this girl is really all I have to live
for. Looking back on my life, I see where I have been a fool; and
perhaps the good fortune that has followed me has been more luck
than anything else. Your husband was a smarter man than I am, and
he came to grief, though I will say that I always warned him against
that Western place.

Do you remember the old days when we had the two little homesteads,
and I used to ride down from the out-station of a Saturday and
spend Sunday with you and Andrew, and talk over the fortunes we
were going to make? If I had met a woman like you in those days I
might have been a better man. As it was, I made a fool of myself.
But that's all past praying for.

Now about my girl. If you will take her, and make her as good
a woman as yourself, or as near it as you can, you will earn my
undying thanks. As to money matters, when I die she will of course
have a great deal of money, so that it is well she should begin now
to learn how to use it; I have, therefore, given her full power to
draw all money that may be required. I may tell you that I intend
to leave your boys enough to start them in life, and they will