e can settle
down and rest a spell."

Indeed, there was rest for the household itself, but for Ninian Sharp
and his coadjutors. The mining scheme was rapidly put into practical
operation; Mr. Hale lingering all that winter to further its
interests, and to enjoy what he had coveted early in his acquaintance
with it, a few months of ranch life at ideal Sobrante.

Then came the glorious springtime, when the mesa was alive with
flowers; the canyon was fragrant with perfume, and the whole
countryside became an earthly paradise. The springtime, when the
Easterner could no longer delay his homeward trip, nor Mrs. Trent the
revelation of what her New York letters had contained, though Jessica
had almost forgotten them.

One week before the lawyer was to leave them, mother and child sat,
hand in hand, beside the father's grave, whither the widow had
purposely withdrawn, as if the precious dust within might still
support and counsel her. Taking the little captain's hand in hers,
and speaking as calmly as if her heart were not desperately sad, she
said:

"My darling, when Mr. Hale goes home to New York you will go with
him."

"Mother! Oh! Why?"

"Because it is right. My Cousin Margaret, whose letters you have seen
me read, sometimes with ungrateful tears, offers you a home and an
education. She was a mother to me in my youth, and I owe her much. Now
that she is old and desolate, she begs for you. It may be that I
should still have declined to please her at so much pain to--us, but
the discovery of this copper mine of ours, and the fact that you will
one day be one of America's richest daughters, forces me to comply."

"But, why, mother? Why should that matter? I'd rather give it up. Say
no! Oh, please, say no!"

"I cannot now. I dare not. Upon your dear shoulders will rest a great
trust and responsibility. You must be fitted to discharge that trust
by the best education possible. This education you cannot gain here.
You must seek it elsewhere. We must not make it harder for each other,
this bitter parting, but we must bear it bravely for--father's sake."

Thus ended Jessica's early childhood; and of what befell her in that
widely different life at school it must be left to another volume to
relate.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JESSICA, THE HEIRESS***

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