eccentric, woman-hating Nathaniel, but just returned from the
seas, told her how madly he had loved her, and how the knowledge
that she belonged to another would drive him from his fatherland
forever--that in the burning clime of India he would make gold his
idol, forgetting, if it were possible, the mother who had borne
him! Then she recalled the angry scorn with which her adopted
sister had received the news of her engagement with John, and how
the conviction was at last forced upon her that Sarah herself had
loved him in secret, and that in a fit of desperation she had
given her hand to the rather inefficient Richard, ever after
treating her rival with a cool reserve, which now came back to her
with painful distinctness.

"But she will love my little Dora for _John's_ sake, if not
for mine," she thought, at last; and then, as if she had all the
time been speaking to her daughter, she continued," And you must
be very dutiful to your aunt, and kind to your cousins, fulfilling
their slightest wishes."

Looking up quickly, Dora asked, "Have you written to Aunt Sarah?
Does she say I can come?"

"The letter is written, and Mrs. Gannis will send it as soon as I
am dead," answered Mrs. Deane. "I am sure she will give you a
home. I told her there was no alternative but the almshouse;"
then, after a pause, she added: "I wrote to your uncle Nathaniel
some months ago, when I knew that I must die. It is time for his
reply, but I bade him direct to Sarah, as I did not then think to
see the winter snow."