for an
uncertain hint that might mislead me."

"Stop there!" interrupted Mrs. Greyfield. "Do you think _I_ should have
hesitated in a case like that? But go on."

"I knew you had considerable property, and thought I knew you were with
friends who would not let you suffer--"

"Though they had abandoned him while still alive, in the wilderness! Beg
pardon; please go on again."

"And that Oregon was really a more comfortable, and safe place for a
family than California, as times were then--"

Mrs. Greyfield groaned.

"And that you, if there, would do very well until I could come for you.
I could not suspect that you would avail yourself of the privilege of
widowhood within so short a time, if ever."

"Oh!" ejaculated my listener, with irrepressible impatience.

I read on without appearing to observe the interruption.

"To tell the truth, I had not thought of myself as dead, and that is
probably where I made the greatest mistake. It did not occur to me, that
you were thinking of yourself as a widow; therefore, I did not realize
the risk. But when the news came of your death, if it were really you,
as I finally made up my mind it must be--"

An indignant gesture, accompanied by a sob, expressed Mrs. Greyfield's
state of feeling on this head.

"I fell into a state of confirmed melancholy, reproaching myself
severely for not having searched the continent over before stopping to
dig gold! though it was for you I was digging it, and our dear boy, whom
I believed alive and well, somewhere, until I received Mr. Seabrook's
letter.

"My dear Anna, I come now to that which will try your feelings; but you
must keep in view that I have the same occasion for complaint. Having
made a comfortable fortune, and feeling miserable about you and the boy,
I concluded to return to the Atlantic States, to visit my old home.
While there I met a lovely and excellent girl, who consented to be my
wife, and I was married the second time. We had one child, a girl, now
eighteen years of age; and then my wife died. I mourned her sincerely,
but not more so than I had mourned you.

"At last, after all these years, news came of you from a reliable
source. The very man to whose charge I committed you when I expected to
die, returned to the States, and from him I heard of your arrival in
Oregon, your marriage, and your subsequent divorce. Painful as this last
news was to my feelings, I set out immediately for California (I had
learned from hi