Page:While Caroline Was Growing.djvu/129

 face cleared and Caroline saw that he was very handsome.

"Oh, Mrs. Ufford," he gasped, "read this! Just read it! I found it in my pocketbook—I thought you might be gone—she put it there for me—my poor little Lou! My God, what a brute—what a brute!"

The woman, one foot still on the step of the brougham, supported the child on her raised knee and held the paper in her free hand.

"My dearest husband," she read aloud, "if I get well you will never see this, for I will take it out, but I don't believe I will take it out, for I don't believe I will get well. They say everybody thinks they will die, and of course a great many don't, but some do, and I think I will, I don't know why, but I am sure. But you will have the little girl. I am sure she will be a girl, and I hope she will look like me and be a comfort to you. You will take good care of her, I know. Think how nicely you took care of me and how hard you worked. You take her to my sister, and when she gets big enough, then you take her. She will not be a burden for you will earn lots of money when you can stop