reached his father’s house in a state of intoxication; and had since become convinced of my unworthiness, and of the necessity of severing for ever all connection with me.  Not for an instant did I credit him.  It seemed a vile machination, and I scornfully rejected all overtures for separation, proclaiming my resolution to assert and maintain my rights as a lawful wife.  It was open war, and how they derided my proud demand for recognition!

“Mr. Audre left college the week after Cuthbert was called so unexpectedly away, and disappeared; and grandmother died suddenly with rheumatism of the heart, when only a few miles distant from the harbour of her destination.  Peleg audaciously proposed that we should ignore the empty worthless marriage ceremony, accept the Laurance bribe, and go away to the far west, where we might begin life anew.  He told me my husband believed me unworthy, that he had convinced him I would dishonour his noble name, and that my reputation was at his own mercy.  In my amazement and horror I defied him, dared him to do his worst; and recklessly he accepted the rash challenge.  Leaving no clue (as I imagined), I secretly quitted the village, where gossip was busy with my name, and went to New York.  My scanty means rapidly melted away, and I hired myself as a seamstress in a wealthy family.  Not even at this stage of affairs did I lose faith in my husband, and bravely I confronted the knowledge that at no distant period I should be forced to provide for a helpless infant.

“One day, in going down a steep flight of steps, with a heavy waiter in my hands, I missed my footing, fell, and was picked up senseless on the tiled floor at the foot of the stairs.  A physician living near was called in, and as I was only the seamstress, the information he gave my employer induced her to send me immediately to the hospital for pauper women.  One of my ankles was fractured, and the day after my admission to the hospital you were born prematurely.  In a ward of that hospital, surrounded by strange but kind sympathetic faces, you, my darling, opened your blue eyes, unwelcomed by a father’s love, unnoticed by your wretched mother; for I was delirious for many days, and you were three weeks old when first I knew you were my baby.  Ah, my daughter! why did not a merciful God order us both out of the world then, before it persecuted and bruised us so cruelly?  I have wished a thousand times that you had died before I ever recognized you as mine!”

“Oh, mother, mother, pity me!  Do not reproach me with the life I owe to you.”

Regina’s features writhed, and, pressing her face closer against her mother’s knee, she sobbed unrestrainedly: 

“My darling, blessings often come so thoroughly disguised that we brand them as curses, learning later that they garner all our earthly hopes, sometimes our heavenly; and when I look at you now, my soul yearns over you with a love too deep for utterance.  I know that you were born to avenge your wrongs and mine, to aid by your baby fingers in lifting the load of injustice and libel that has so long borne me down.  You are the one solitary comfort in all the wide earth, and but for you I should have given up the struggle long ago.”