“i couldn’t find the letter nowhere, miss hattie. i must have been mistaken,” whined miss scrimp. “and i’ve dragged my poor old bones all the way up these dreadful stairs again to tell you so.”

“did you look on the shelf above your bed, where you laid it after opening and reading it?” asked hattie, very quietly, but with her dark eyes fixed on the ashen face of the old vixen.

“what?” almost screamed miss scrimp. “do you accuse me of opening one of your letters?”

“yes—i do. there were two witnesses to the act.”

“it’s a lie! there wasn’t a single one beside me in the room,” yelled miss scrimp, wild and desperate. “no one could have seen me do it.”

“three witnesses, since you have turned state’s evidence, and confessed it!” said hattie, so provokingly quiet.

“i didn’t confess. i only said no one saw me do it.”

“oh, yes, there did—and i will be able to prove it before the magistrate when i have you arrested. if you had confessed your fault at once i might have excused your criminal curiosity, and forgiven you in the hope that hereafter you would be a wiser and a better woman. but since you deny your guilt i may as well prove it and have you punished. inside the walls of a prison you may have time to reflect on the manner in which you have treated poor[59] girls who were in your power. you will get better board there than your boarders get here.”

“in prison?” gasped miss scrimp.

“yes, in prison, where you will be sent for breaking the seal of my letter.”

“i didn’t break the seal—i only tore it open at the end!” whined the wretched culprit.

“with your thumb-nail. no matter where or how you opened my private letter after taking it from the hands of your servant, who received it from the postman.”

“oh, there’s where you found it out? little jess has told on me. oh, but i’ll skin her for it. i’ll scratch her brown eyes out! i’ll——”

“hush, miss scrimp. you will not in any way dare to injure the poor girl. i have not said she was a witness. i have said there were at first two witnesses—you, in your own confession, make the third. i need no more. you can go to your room, while i put on my things and go for an officer.”

“oh, mercy!” screamed miss scrimp, “don’t have me arrested. i did do it. i did read the letter. there were only two lines of reading in it, and i couldn’t make nothin’ out o’ them. oh, dear, dear, it will be the ruin of me—the everlastin’ ruin. oh, do have mercy on a poor creetur’ that has always been as good to you as she knew how.”

and miss scrimp threw herself on her knees on the bare, uncarpeted floor, and with tears streaming down her sallow cheeks, looked in agony on the girl who held her at her mercy.

“some one has stolen the letter off my shelf, where i hid it,” she moaned. “if they hadn’t i would have brought it right up to you. oh, do pity me, miss hattie. i was so put out ’cause i couldn’t[60] find out who was a writin’ to you from californy. do forgive me; i’ll never, never do so again.”

“get up and sit down,” said hattie. “never kneel except to the father above, and of him ask forgiveness. if i should abstain from arresting you for this crime you must promise me several things and keep your promises, too, or i shall not keep mine. and you must answer several questions truly. on yourself now will depend my action.”

“oh, i’ll promise anything, and keep it, too, and i’ll answer all you ask, if you’ll only not have me arrested. i know i did wrong, i knew it all the time i was doing it, but it seemed as if i couldn’t help it.”

“promise me from this time on to treat poor jessie albemarle kindly, never to whip her, never even to scold her without she is at fault,” said hattie.

“i promise,” sobbed miss scrimp.

“and promise if one of the poor girls, or any of them, are taken sick, not to treat her or them inhumanly, and send them off to suffer, but to wait till they can recover and pay for their board and nursing.”

“i promise,” gasped miss scrimp.

“next, i want you to put enough on the table for your boarders to eat, so that they need not arise from the table hungry.”

“it’ll ruin me, but i’ll do it,” moaned the hapless woman, fairly writhing at the thought.

“i will ask no more promises now. if you keep what you have made you will have no cause to regret it. but there are a few questions for you to answer. you have got jessie albemarle bound out to you till she reaches the age of eighteen?”

“yes, i got her from the asylum.”

“what do you know about her parentage?”

[61]

“nothing, for sure, except what they told me at the asylum. they said she was left there a baby, in nice clothes, with a lot of fine things in a basket. there was a gold necklace around her neck, and on the clasp the name, jessie albemarle, and in the basket a note asking she might be kept tenderly, for some day she’d be called for. and they kept her there, and taught her readin’, and writin’, and ’rithmetic, and all that, till she was over twelve years old, and then i got her. she hasn’t growed a bit since, though she is over fifteen now.”

“no wonder, for you have starved and worked her almost to death. but this cruelty shall go no farther; henceforth she shall be treated at least like a human being.”

“oh, miss hattie, aren’t you going to have any mercy on me?”

“all, and even more than you deserve, miss scrimp. but i am not done with my questions yet. a lady called here not long ago to ask after jessie albemarle?”

“yes, and i told her she had run away. i didn’t know where she was.”

“what did you do it for?”

“i was afraid it was the girl’s mother, and i’d lose jess, when i need her so much.”

“oh, you heartless creature! what did the lady say?”

“she cried and took on terrible, but i didn’t let her into the house fer fear she’d see jess. i happened by good luck to be at the door when she came. she was a grand looking lady, with diamonds in her ears and on her fingers.”

“was that the last you heard of it?”

“no, they sent for me down to the asylum, and i[62] told ’em the same story. i said jess had run away.”

“that makes another fraud, miss scrimp, for which you could be arrested and punished.”

“oh, dear me! you’ll not have me arrested for what i tell you, when i only answer the questions you force on me.”

“it depends entirely on yourself now. treat jessie kindly, set a good fair table. i ask no luxuries, only that you have enough for all, and you are safe from the arrest which i can and will have made if you break a single promise.”

“i’ll keep my word if it just ruins me,” sighed miss scrimp. “and now, miss hattie, please, please do me one favor.”

“what is it?”

“tell me who is it that is writin’ to you from californy. i’m just dyin’ to know.”

“i cannot tell you at present,” said hattie. “the time may not be far distant when i shall make no secret of it to you or any one else. now you can go.”

“thankee, miss hattie. i’ll live in hopes. but i’d give anything to know now.”

hattie made no answer, and miss scrimp took up her lamp and crept down stairs again to mourn over the change that had got to come in her household.

and hattie, delighted at her victory, pondered over a new thought. how would she go to work to discover if the lady who had called was really the mother of little jessie, and if so, how could she inform her that her child was alive and needful of a mother’s care and love?

“it can only be done by advertising, and i will do it,” said hattie, after she had thought over it a while.

[63]

then she took the crumpled letter of two lines only, and looked at it over and over again, with tears in her eyes.

“oh, father in heaven, guide me!” she said. “dare i trust him now? has he surely conquered that fearful appetite or passion which drags so many noble souls down to death and perdition?”