he cry herself to sleep.

Nobody but her old black mammy knew how tragic had been her sufferings,
how many bitter hours she had passed, nor how many bitter tears she had
shed. Yet even old Henny could not comfort her, nor was there any one
else to whom the girl could pour out her heart. She had, it is true,
kept up her intimacy with her Uncle George--hardly a week passed that
she was not a visitor at his house or he at hers--but they had long
since refrained from discussing Harry. Not because he did not want to
talk about him, but because she would not let him--Of course not!

To Richard Horn, however, strange to say, she often turned--not so much
for confidences as for a broader understanding of life. The thoughtful
inventor was not so hedged about by social restrictions, and would break
out in spontaneous admiration of Harry, saying with a decisive nod of
his head, "A fine, splendid young fellow, my dear Kate; I recognized
it first at St. George's dinner to Mr. Poe, and if I may say so, a
much-abused young man whose only sin is that he, like many another about
us, has been born under a waning star in a sky full of murky clouds; one
that the fresh breeze of a new civilization will some day clear away"--a
deduction which Kate could not quite grasp, but which comforted her
greatly.

It delighted her, too, to hear him talk of the notable occurrences
taking place about them. "You are wonderfully intelligent, my dear,"
he had said to her on one occasion, "and should miss nothing of the
developments that are going on about us;" and in proof of it had the
very next day taken her to an exhibition of Mr. Morse's new telegraph,
given at the Institute, at which two operators, each with an instrument,
the men in sight of each other, but too far apart to be in collusion,
were sending and answering the messages through wires stretched around
the hall. She, at Richard's suggestion, had written a message herself,
which she handed to the nearest operator who had ticked it to his
fellow, and who at once read it to the audience. Even then many doubting
Thomases had cried out "Collusion," until Richard, rising in his seat,
had not only endorsed the truth of the reading, but explained the
invention, his statement silencing all opposition because of his
well-known standing and knowledge of kindred sciences.

Richard's readings also, from which Kate was never absent, and which had
now been resumed at his own house, greatly interested her.