Dora Deane | Page 5

was their child--Fanny's child and John's.
"Yes," she said, half aloud, "I will give her a home," but anon there came stealing over her the old bitterness of feeling, which she had cherished since she knew that Fanny was preferred to herself, and then the evil of her nature whispered, "No, I will not receive their child. We can hardly manage to live now, and it is not my duty to incur an additional expense. Dora must stay where she is, and if I do not answer the letter, she will naturally suppose I never received it."
Thus deciding the matter, she crushed the letter into her pocket and went back to her work; but there was an added weight upon her spirits, while continually ringing in her ears were the words, "Care for John's child and mine." "If I could only make her of any use to me," she said at last, and then as her eye fell upon Bridget, whose stay with her was so uncertain, the dark thought entered her mind, "Why could not Dora fill her place? It would be a great saving, and of course the child must expect to work."
Still, reason as she would, Mrs. Deane could not at once bring herself to the point of making a menial of one who was every way her equal; neither could she decide to pass the letter by unnoticed; so for the present she strove to dismiss the subject, which was not broached to her daughters until the evening on which we first introduced them to our readers. Then taking her seat by the brightly burning lamp, she drew the letter from her pocket and read it aloud, while Alice drummed an occasional note upon the piano and Eugenia beat a tattoo upon the carpet with her delicate French slipper.
"Of course she won't come," said Alice, as her mother finished reading. "It was preposterous in Aunt Fanny to propose such a thing!" and she glanced towards Eugenia for approbation of what she had said.
Eugenia's quick, active mind had already looked at the subject in all its bearings, and in like manner with her mother she saw how Dora's presence there would be a benefit; so to Alice's remark she replied: "It will sound well for us to have a cousin in the poorhouse, won't it? For my part, I propose that she comes, and then be made to earn her own living. We can dismiss Bridget, who is only two years older than Dora, and we shall thus avoid quarreling regularly with her vixenish mother, besides saving a dollar every week--"
"So make a drudge of Dora," interrupted Alice. "Better leave her in the poorhouse at once."
"Nobody intends to make a drudge of her," retorted Eugenia. "Mother works in the kitchen, and I wonder if it will hurt Dora to help her. Every girl ought to learn to work!"
"Except Eugenia Deane," suggested Alice, laughing, to think how little her sister's practise accorded with her theory.
At this point in the conversation, Bridget entered, bringing a letter which bore the India post-mark, together with the unmistakable handwriting of Nathaniel Deane!
"A letter from Uncle Nat, as I live!" exclaimed Eugenia. "What is going to happen? He hasn't written before in years. I do wish I knew when he expected to quit this mundane sphere, and how much of his money he intends leaving me!"
By this time Mrs. Deane had broken the seal, uttering an exclamation of surprise as a check for $500 fell into her lap.
"Five hundred dollars!" screamed Eugenia, catching up the check and examining it closely, to see that there was no mistake. "The old miser has really opened his heart. Now, we'll have some genuine silver forks for our best company, so we shan't be in constant terror lest some one should discover that they are only plated. I'll buy that set of pearls at Mercer's, too, and, Alice, you and I will nave some new furs. I'd go to Rochester to-morrow, if it were not Sunday. What shall we get for you, mother? A web of cloth, or an ounce of sewing silk?" and the heartless girl turned towards her mother, whose face was white as ashes, as she said faintly: "The money is not ours. It is Dora's-- to be used for her benefit."
"Not ours! What do you mean! It can't be true!" cried Eugenia, snatching the letter, and reading therein a confirmation of her mother's words.
After a slight apology for his long silence, Undo Nat had spoken of Fanny's letter, saying he supposed she must be dead ere this, and that Dora was probably living with her aunt, as it was quite natural she should do. Then he expressed his willingness to defray all the expense which she might be, adding that though he should never