who never spoke of her uncle Nathaniel, or manifested the least
gratitude for what he was doing!"

In short, the impression left upon the mind of Uncle Nat was that
Dora, aside from being cold-hearted, was uncommonly dull, and
would never make much of a woman, do what they might for her! With
a sigh, and a feeling of keen disappointment, he read the letter,
saying to himself, as he laid it away, "Can this be true of
Fanny's child?"

But this, we say, _Fanny's_ child did not know; and as her
eyes wandered over the painted map of India, she resolved to write
and to tell him of her mother's dying words--tell him how much she
loved him, because he was her father's brother, and how she wished
he would come home, that she might know him better.

"If I only had some keepsake to send him--something he would
prize," she thought, when her letter was finished. And then, as
she enumerated her small store of treasures, she remembered her
mother's beautiful hair, which had been cut from her head, as she
lay in her coffin, and which now held a place in the large square
trunk. "I will send him a lock of that," she said; and kneeling
reverently by the old green trunk, the shrine where she nightly
said her prayers, she separated from the mass of rich, brown hair,
one long, shining tress, which she inclosed within her letter,
adding, in a postscript, "It is mother's hair, and Dora's tears
have often fallen upon it. 'Tis all I have to give."

Poor little Dora! Nathaniel Deane would have prized that simple
gift far more than all the wealth which he called his, but it was