Page:The New Penelope.djvu/81

 think I should have hesitated in a case like that? But go on."

"I knew you had considerable property, and thought I knew you were with friends who would not let you suffer—"

"Though they had abandoned him while still alive, in the wilderness! Beg pardon; please go on again."

"And that Oregon was really a more comfortable, and safe place for a family than California, as times were then—"

Mrs. Greyfield groaned.

"And that you, if there, would do very well until I could come for you. I could not suspect that you would avail yourself of the privilege of widowhood within so short a time, if ever."

"Oh!" ejaculated my listener, with irrepressible impatience.

I read on without appearing to observe the interruption.

"To tell the truth, I had not thought of myself as dead, and that is probably where I made the greatest mistake. It did not occur to me, that you were thinking of yourself as a widow; therefore, I did not realize the risk. But when the news came of your death, if it were really you, as I finally made up my mind it must be—"

An indignant gesture, accompanied by a sob, expressed Mrs. Greyfield's state of feeling on this head.

"I fell into a state of confirmed melancholy, reproaching myself severely for not having searched the continent over before stopping to dig gold! though it was for you I was digging it, and our dear boy, whom I believed alive and well, somewhere, until I received Mr. Seabrook's letter.

"My dear Anna, I come now to that which will try your feelings; but you must keep in view that I have the same occasion for complaint. Having made a comfortable fortune, and feeling miserable about you and the boy, I concluded to return to the Atlantic States, to visit my old home. While there I met a lovely and excellent girl, who consented to be my wife, and I was married the second time. We had one child, a girl, now eighteen years of age; and then my wife died. I mourned her sincerely, but not more so than I had mourned you.