PART III

CHAPTER I

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

The Rummage Sale was a great success and netted fully two hundred and fifty dollars, besides quantities of goods of different kinds which were left and given either to the poor or to the Charitable Society in Crompton.  The trunks containing Amy’s dresses had been sent home without Amy’s knowledge, and deposited in the closet with Mandy Ann and Judy, the Colonel swearing at first that he would have nothing pertaining to Homer Smith so near him.  The apron sale had been an absorbing topic of conversation, the people wondering what Mr. Harcourt was going to do with his purchase, and if he wouldn’t give it back to Eloise.  Nothing was further from his thought.  He had bought it to keep, and he laid it away in the bottom of his trunk with the handkerchief Eloise had used when he first called upon her.

He was growing more and more in love with her and more unwilling to leave Crompton.  He had already staid longer than he had at first intended, but it did not need Howard’s urgent invitation for him to prolong his visit.  Every day he went to Mrs. Biggs’s, and sometimes twice a day, and took Eloise out in her arm-chair for an airing,—­once as far as to the school-house where Ruby Ann still presided, and where Eloise hoped soon to take up her duties.  She was very happy, or would have been if she could have heard from California.  Every day she hoped for news, and every day was disappointed, until at last nearly a week after the Rummage a letter came forwarded by her grandmother from Mayville.  It was from a physician to whom Eloise had twice written with regard to her mother, and this was his reply: 

“Portland, Oregon, September —­, 18—.

“My Dear Miss Smith: 

“I left San Francisco several months ago and have been stopping in several places, and that is why your letters were so long in reaching me.  They both came in the same mail, and I wrote to San Francisco to see what I could learn with regard to your mother.  It seems that the private asylum of Dr. Haynes was broken up, as there were only three patients when Mrs. Smith left, and it did not pay.  Soon after your father died in Santa Barbara, your mother was removed from the asylum by a gentleman whose name I have thus far been unable to learn.  I thought it must have been some relative, but if you know nothing of it my theory is wrong.  Dr. Haynes went at once with his family to Europe, and is travelling on the continent.  His address is, Care of Munroe & Co., Bankers, 7 Rue Scribe.  Paris.  Write him again, as he must know who took your mother from his care.  He may not be in Paris now, but your letter will reach him in time.  If there is anything I can do to help you, I will gladly do it.  If you were in San Francisco you might find some of the attendants in the asylum, who could give you the information you desire.