great
interest of a woman's life. I plead guilty to having been foolish enough
to openly acknowledge these sentiments, and to having made bitter enemies
everywhere as the necessary consequence. If this plain defense of myself
fails to satisfy you, grant me an audience, and I will answer your
questions, whatever they may be.

"To the third calumny, I reply, that if you had been a Prince instead of
a merchant, I would still have done everything in my power to keep your
son away from my daughter--for this simple reason, that the idea of
parting with her to any man fills me with grief and dismay. I only
yielded to the marriage engagement, when the conviction was forced upon
me that my poor child's happiness depended on her union with your son. It
is this consideration alone which induces me to write to you, and to
humiliate myself by pleading for a hearing. As for the question of money,
if through some unexpected misfortune you became a bankrupt to-morrow, I
would entreat you to consent to the marriage exactly as I entreat you
now. Poverty has no terrors for me while I have health to work. But I
cannot face the idea of my child's life being blighted, because you
choose to believe the slanders that are spoken of her mother. For the
third time I ask you to grant me an audience, and to hear me in my own
defense."

There she paused, and looked over my shoulder.

"I think that is enough," she said. "Do you see anything objectionable in
my letter?"

How could I object to the letter? From beginning to end, it was strongly,
and yet moderately, expressed. I resigned my place at the desk, and the
widow wrote the fair copy, with her own hand. She made no change
whatever, except by adding these ominous lines as a postscript:

"I implore you not to drive me to despair. A mother who is pleading for
her child's life--it is nothing less, in this case--is a woman who surely
asserts a sacred claim. Let no wise man deny it."

"Do you think it quite discreet," I ventured to ask, "to add those
words?"

She looked at me with a moment's furtive scrutiny, and only answered
after she had sealed the letter, and placed it in my hands.

"I have my reasons," she replied. "Let the words remain."

Returning to the house at rather a late hour for Frankfort, I was
surprised to find Mr. Keller waiting to see me.

"I have had a talk with my partner," he said. "It has left (for the time
only, I hope), a painful impression on both sides--and I mus