Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/681

 received in Los Angeles no such collection of boxes arrived, but after she had been in Los Angeles two years there was such a collection. At this home, where Opal lived six months, she spent long nights printing on paper. Reference books in that home and in the Los Angeles library—by another chain of circumstances probably—were well thumbed where appeared things that were also word for word in the diary. Possibly Opal was merely comparing her childish work with these books which, incidentally, contained much about Henri d’Orleans, adopted by Opal for parentage.

After Opal had been with the Atlantic Monthly for some time, various relatives in Oregon received mysterious letters and valuable presents from Boston, purportedly from persons in the employ of Opal's real relatives. A long story could be written about these, but briefly the letters stated that the persons writing them had always been near Opal since the time of her substitution, to watch her and keep from her her parentage. The presents were rewards from Opal's estate to the Whiteleys for the care they had given her. The letters were written by someone intimately acquainted with persons and events in Cottage Grove. They told an involved story of Opal's parentage that gave a perfect background for the diary running in the Atlantic and for the cleverly concealed acrostics in French adroitly brought into the diary and discovered by accident after the diary had gone into book form. These acrostics pointed directly to Henri d’Orleans as the father of Opal. One of them is as follows:

I did sing it le chant de fleurs that Angel Father did teach me to sing of Hiacinthe, Eclaire, Nenufar, Rose, Iris,