Jessica, the Heiress Part 29

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was to leave them, mother and child sat, hand in hand, beside the father's grave, whither the widow had purposely withdrawn, as if the precious dust within might still support and counsel her.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.