"I have brought her a letter from her brother," replied she; and she handed me a sealed envelope.
"Do you mean from Edward Forrestal?"
"Yes."
"Will you come up and sit down?" I preceded her up the steps, and gave the letter to mother, who must have overheard what had passed, and had risen to her feet. "From Edward? What can it be?" she murmured. Indeed, we had not heard from my uncle for twenty years. "Come in and sit down," she said to the visitor, in a somewhat agitated tone. "I will read what you have brought, and"
"I will stay here until you have read it," returned the other; and she turned away, refusing the chair I proffered her, and leaned against a pillar of the veranda. As she stood there, the hackman approached and asked whether he should take down her trunk. "Not yet," she said. Meantime, mother had gone into the front drawing-room, where there was a light, to read the letter. I said, at a venture, "If we had known you were coming, we would have made preparations"
But she interrupted me. "I took my chances," she said. "It is only twelve days since I left England. I brought the letter myself, because I didn't wish to trust it to the mails, and it is all I have to show for myself."
At this point, mother reappeared in the door-way. "My dear," she said, in an uncertain voice, "come here where I can see you. Are you—are you"
"I am Sinfire," said the other, advancing with a certain stateliness, and taking my mother's hand in hers. My mother was strangely moved. She gave an inarticulate cry, drew the girl into her arms, and kissed her. It seems that her brother—my uncle Edward—was dead. He had died in London, leaving very little property, and a daughter, his only surviving child. His wife had died years before. There was no one in England on whom he had any claim (he had lived upwards of fifteen years in India), and he was troubled in mind as to his daughter's future. Then he thought of his sister who had married and gone to America, and he resolved that his daughter should go to her. America would be a better place for her than Europe, especially as there was so little money at her disposal. He wrote, on his death-bed, the letter which she had brought us, in which he had recommended her to his sister's care. "She is able to take her own part in the world," the letter said: "she wishes no more than I to be a burden on you. But you will know what things a girl like her may and may not do, in the great Republic; and I am assured that my sister will
