voice would have echoed the falling of the proverbial
"pin." He summed it up after one reading in a brief epitome:

"Dorothy, otherwise Dorothy Elizabeth Somerset Calvert, is the last and
nearest living relative of Mrs. Elizabeth Cecil Somerset-Calvert. She is
the only child of one Cecil Calvert, deceased, and of Miriam his wife.
Cecil Calvert, herein named, was the only son of the only son of Mrs.
Calvert's only brother. The descent is clear and unmistakable. Cecil
Calvert, the father of Dorothy, was early left an orphan and was
'raised' by Mrs. Betty, presumably to be her heir. When he came of age
to want a wife she provided one for him. He objected and made his own
choice. She cut him off with a limited income, but sufficient for one
differently reared, and taking his bride he went to the far West. There
he died and his wife soon followed him; but her illness was a lingering
one and during it she sought to provide for their baby Dorothy.

"This envelope contains her letters and those of her husband, written
after his fatal seizure to Mrs. Calvert, describing everything connected
with their young and, as it proved, improvident lives. Neither of them,
the sad wife protests, had ever been trained to the wise handling of
money or of anything useful. It had not been their fault so much as
their misfortunes that they were dying in what was to them real poverty;
and the pathetic letters ended with the declaration that, after its
mother's death, the child Dorothy would be safely convoyed to its
great-great-aunt's door and left to her to be 'fairly dealt with.' It
was all quite simple and direct; the commonplace story of many other
lives."

But here Mrs. Betty, stifling the emotion which the re-reading of the
papers had roused in her, took up the tale herself.

"When the baby came I was indignant. That at first. I felt I was too old
to have a squalling infant forced into my house. Then better thoughts
prevailed. I saw in the little thing traces of my own family likeness
and I would have kept her. It was old Dinah and Ephraim who advised me
then and wisely I believe, though there have been times when I've wished
I hadn't listened to them. They told me with the privilege of life-long
service, that I'd made a brilliant failure of my raising of Cecil. They
advised me to hunt up some worthy couple unburdened with children of
their own and force the child upon them, to rear in simple, sensible
ways, I to pay such a sum as would