"And the other, the boy like Hugh, have you met him again?" Adah asked,
feeling a little disappointed, when Alice replied: "Once, I am very sure."
Alice heard the faint sigh, and hope died out for Hugh. Poor Hugh! Alice
was thinking of him, too, and said at last: "Was Rocket sold to Colonel
Tiffton for debt?"
"Yes, for 'Lina's debts, contracted at Harney's. I've heard of his
boasting that Hugh should yet be compelled to see him galloping down the
pike upon his idol."
"He never shall!" and Alice spoke under her breath, asking further
questions concerning the sale of Colonel Tiffton's house, and now much
Mosside was worth.
Adah did not know. She was only posted with regard to Rocket, who was
pawned for five hundred dollars. "Once I insanely hoped that I might
help redeem him--that God would find a work for me to do--and my heart
was so happy for a moment."
"What did you think of doing?" Alice asked, glancing at the delicate
young girl, who looked so unaccustomed to toil of any kind.
"I thought to be a governess or waiting maid," and Adah's lip began to
quiver. Then she told how her letter had been carelessly forgotten.
"Do you remember the address?" and Alice waited curiously for the
answer.
"Yes, 'A.E.R. Snowdon.' You came from Snowdon Miss Johnson, and I've
wanted so much to ask if you knew 'A.E.R.,' but have never dared talk
freely with you till to-day."
Alice was confounded. Surely the leadings of Providence were too plainly
evident to be unnoticed. There was a reason why Adah Hastings must go to
Anna Richards, and Alice hastened to reply: "'A.E.R.' is no less a
person than Anna Richards whose mother and brother are now at Saratoga."
"Oh, I can't go there. They are too proud. They would hate me for
Willie, and ask me for his father."
Very gently Alice talked to her of Snowdon and Anna Richards, whom Adah
was sure to like.
"I'm so glad for your sake that it has come around at last," she said.
"Will you write to her to-day, or shall I for you? Perhaps I had
better!"
"Oh, no, I would rather go unannounced--rather Miss Anna should like me
for my self, if I go," and Adah's voice trembled, for she shrank
nervously from the thought of meeting the Richards family.
If 'Lina liked the old lady, she certainly could not, and the very
thought of these elder sisters, in all their primness, dismayed and
disheartened her.
While this was passing through her mind, she sat twining Willie's silken
curls around her finger, and apparently listening to what Alice was now
saying of Dr. Richards; but Alice might as well have talked to the winds
for any impression she made. Adah was looking far into the future,
wondering what it had in store for her, as if in Anna Richards she would
indeed find the sympathizing friend which Alice said she would.
Gradually, as she thought of Anna, her heart went out strangely toward
her.