that the memoranda referred to betrayed nothing but the bare circumstance
that Laura’s real parents were unknown, and stopped there. So far from
being hampered by this, the gossips seemed to gain all the more freedom
from it. They supplied all the missing information themselves, they
filled up all the blanks. The town soon teemed with histories of Laura’s
origin and secret history, no two versions precisely alike, but all
elaborate, exhaustive, mysterious and interesting, and all agreeing in
one vital particular-to-wit, that there was a suspicious cloud about her
birth, not to say a disreputable one.
Laura began to encounter cold looks, averted eyes and peculiar nods and
gestures which perplexed her beyond measure; but presently the pervading
gossip found its way to her, and she understood them–then. Her pride
was stung. She was astonished, and at first incredulous. She was about
to ask her mother if there was any truth in these reports, but upon
second thought held her peace. She soon gathered that Major Lackland’s
memoranda seemed to refer to letters which had passed between himself and
Judge Hawkins. She shaped her course without difficulty the day that
that hint reached her.
That night she sat in her room till all was still, and then she stole
into the garret and began a search. She rummaged long among boxes of
musty papers relating to business matters of no, interest to her, but at
last she found several bundles of letters. One bundle was marked
“private,” and in that she found what she wanted. She selected six or
eight letters from the package and began to devour their contents,
heedless of the cold.
By the dates, these letters were from five to seven years old. They were
all from Major Lackland to Mr. Hawkins. The substance of them was, that
some one in the east had been inquiring of Major Lackland about a lost
child and its parents, and that it was conjectured that the child might
be Laura.
Evidently some of the letters were missing, for the name of the inquirer
was not mentioned; there was a casual reference to “this handsome-
featured aristocratic gentleman,” as if the reader and the writer were
accustomed to speak of him and knew who was meant.
In one letter the Major said he agreed with Mr. Hawkins that the inquirer
seemed not altogether on the wrong track; but he also agreed that it
would be best to keep quiet until more convincing developments were
forthcoming.
Another letter said that “the poor soul broke completely down when be saw
Laura’s picture, and declared it must be she.”
Still another said:
“He seems entirely alone in the world, and his heart is so wrapped
up in this thing that I believe that if it proved a false hope, it
would kill him; I have persuaded him to wait a little while and go
west when I go.”
Another letter had this paragraph in it:
“He is better one day and worse the next, and is out of his mind a
good deal of the time. Lately his case has developed a something
which is a wonder to the hired nurses, but which will not be much of
a marvel to you if you have read medical philosophy much. It is
this: his lost memory returns to him when he is delirious, and goes
away again when he is himself-just as old Canada Joe used to talk
the French patois of his boyhood in the delirium of typhus fever,
though he could not do it when his mind was clear. Now this poor
gentleman’s memory has always broken down before he reached the
explosion of the steamer; he could only remember starting up the
river with his wife and child, and he had an idea that there was a
race, but he was not certain; he could not name the boat he was on;
there was a dead blank of a month or more that supplied not an item
to his recollection. It was not for me to assist him, of course.
But now in his delirium it all comes out: the names of the boats,
every incident of the explosion, and likewise the details of his