I wonder
what her name is."
"He did tell me that! I may have passed over something else; you might
better see the letter."
"No; handwriting is like a voice, or a perfume to me--I could not bear it
to-night. John, I feel as if it would _kill_ me. It is so long ago--I
thought I was stronger--O, John," she leaned her head upon his arm and
sobbed convulsively like a little child.
He laid his hand upon her head as if she were indeed the little child,
and for a long time no words were spoken.
"Prudence, there is something else, there is the photograph of the little
girl--her mother named her Jeroma."
"I will take that," she said, lifting her head, "and I will write to her
to-night."
That night before she slept she wrote a long letter to the child with the
brown eyes and sunny curls, describing the home in Maple Street, and
promising to take her into her heart and keep her there always, to adopt
her for her very own little daughter for her own sake and for her
father's sake, whom she knew long ago, ending it thus:
"You cannot come to me too soon, for I am waiting for you with a hungry
heart. I knew there was something good coming to me, and I know you
will be my blessing.
"Your Loving Aunt Prue."
XV.
JEROMA.
"Whom hast them pitied? And whom forgiven I"--_Wills_.
The child had risen early that she might have a good time looking at the
sea lions; the huge creatures covered the rocks two hundred yards away
from her, crawling and squirming, or lying still as if as dead as the
rock itself, their pointed heads and shining bodies giving her a
delightful shiver of affright, their howling and groaning causing her to
run every now and then back to her father's chair on the veranda, and
then she would dance back again and stand and watch them--the horrible,
misshapen monsters--as they quarrelled, or suckled their young, or
furious and wild as they tumbled about and rolled off the craggy cliffs
into the sea.
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