The next day there came to Maude a letter bearing the Canada
postmark, together with the unmistakable handwriting of Janet
Hopkins. Maude had not heard of her for some time, and very eagerly
she read the letter, laughing immoderately, and giving vent to
sudden exclamations of astonishment at its surprising intelligence.
Janet was a mother!--"a livin' mother to a child born out of due
season," so the delighted creature wrote, "and what was better than
all, it was a girl, and the Sunday before was baptized as Maude
Matilda Remington Blodgett Hopkins, there being no reason," she
said, "why she shouldn't give her child as many names as the Queen
of England hitched on to hers, beside that it was not at all likely
that she would ever have another, and so she had improved this
opportunity, and named her daughter in honor of Maude, Matty, Harry,
and her first husband Joel. But," she wrote, "I don't know what
you'll say when I tell you that my old man and some others have made
me believe that seein' I've an heir of my own flesh and blood, I
ought to change that will of mine, so I've made another, and if
Maude Matilda dies you'll have it yet. T'other five thousand is
yours, anyway, and if I didn't love the little wudget as I do, I
wouldn't have changed my will; but natur' is natur'."
Scarcely had Maude finished reading this letter when J.C. came in,
and she handed it to him. He did not seem surprised, for he had
always regarded the will as a doubtful matter; but in reality he was
a little chagrined, for five thousand was only half as much as ten.
Still his love for Maude was, as yet, stronger than his love for
money, and he only laughed heartily at the string of names which
Janet had given to her offspring, saying, "It was a pity it hadn't
been a boy, so she could have called him Jedediah Cleishbotham."
"He does not care for my money," Maude thought, and her heart went
out toward him more lovingly than it had ever done before, and her
dark eyes filled with tears when he told her, as he ere long did,
that he must leave the next day, and return to Rochester.
"The little property left me by my mother needs attention, so my
agent writes me," he said, "and now the will has gone up, and we are
poorer than we were before by five thousand dollars, it is necessary
that I should bestir myself, you know." Maude could not tell why it
was that his words affected her unpleasantly, for she knew he was
not rich, and she felt that she should respect him more if he really
did bestir himself, but still she did not like his manner when
speaking of the will, and her heart was heavy all the day. He, on
the contrary, was in unusually good spirits. He was not tired of
Maude, but he was tired of the monotonous life at Laurel Hill, and
when his agent's summons came it found him ready to go. That for
which he had visited Laurel Hill had in reality been accomplished.
He had secured a wife, not Nellie, but Maude, and determining to do
everything honorable, he on the morning of his departure went to the
doctor, to whom he talked of Maude, expressing his wish to marry
her. Very coldly the doctor answered that "Maude could marry whom
she pleased. It was a maxim of his never to interfere with matches,"
and then, as if the subject were suggestive, he questioned the young
man to know if in his travels he had ever met the lady Maude
Glendower. J.C. had met her frequently at Saratoga.