me?" said Emma, glancing at her companions as she
unfolded her letter.

And then, as one and another nodded and smiled and returned to their
magazines and papers. Emma Cavendish glanced at the signature of her
strange letter, started with surprise, gazed at it a second time more
attentively, and then turned hurriedly and began to read it.

And as she read her face paled and flushed, and she glanced from time to
time at the faces of her companions; but they were all engaged with
pamphlets and papers, except Mrs. Grey, whom Emma perceived to be
furtively watching her.

The strange letter was written in rather a wild and rambling style of
composition, as if the writer were a little brain sick. It ran as
follows:

"BLANK HOTEL, New York City, April 27th, 18--.

"MY DEAR MISS CAVENDISH:--Our near blood relationship might
warrant me in addressing you as my dear Emma. But I refrain,
because you would not understand the familiarity any more than
you recognize this handwriting, which must seem as strange to you
as my face would seem if I were to present myself bodily before
you; for you have never set eyes upon me, and perhaps have never
even heard my name mentioned or my existence alluded to.

"And yet I am one of your family, near of kindred to yourself; in
fact, your own dear mother's only sister.

"'We were two daughter's of one race,
_She_ was the fairer in the face.'

Yes, she was literally so. Your mother was a beautiful blonde, as
I have been told that you, her only child, also are. I am--or,
rather, I _was_ before my hair turned white with sorrow--a very
dark brunette.

"If you have ever heard of me at all, which I doubt--for I know
that at home my once loved and cherished name

"'Was banished from each lip and ear,
Like words of wickedness or fear'--

but if you ever heard of me at all you must have heard of that
willful love marriage which separated me from all my family.

"Since that ill-omened marriage an unbroken succession of
misfortunes have attended my husband and myself until they
culminated in the most crushing calamity of our lives--the loss
of our dear and only daughter in a manner worse than death.

"Soon after that awful bereavement our creditors foreclosed the
mortgage on our estate at White Perch Point, and sold the place
over our heads.

"And my poor husband and mys