“If you can clear your minds of the foul tenants thrust into them, try for a little while to forget all the monstrous crimes you have heard ascribed to me, and as you love your mothers, wives, daughters, go back with me, leaving prejudice behind, and listen dispassionately to my most melancholy story.  The river of death rolls so close to my weary feet, that I speak as one on the brink of eternity; and as I hope to meet my God in peace, I shall tell you the truth.  Sometimes it almost shakes our faith in God’s justice, when we suffer terrible consequences, solely because we did our duty; and it seems to me bitterly hard, inscrutable, that all my misfortunes should have come upon me thick and fast, simply because I obeyed my mother.  You, fathers, say to your children, ’Do this for my sake,’ and lovingly they spring to accomplish your wishes; and when they are devoured by agony, and smothered by disgrace, can you sufficiently pity them, blind artificers of their own ruin?

“Four months ago I was a very poor girl, but proud and happy, because by my own work I could support my mother and myself.  Her health failed rapidly, and life hung upon an operation and certain careful subsequent treatment, which it required one hundred dollars to secure.  I was competing for a prize that would lift us above want, but time pressed; the doctor urged prompt action, and my mother desired me to come South, see her father, deliver a letter and beg assistance.  As long as possible, I resisted her entreaties, because I shrank from the degradation of coming as a beggar to the man who, I knew, had disinherited and disowned his daughter.

“Finally, strangling my rebellious reluctance, I accepted the bitter task.  My mother kissed me good-bye, laid her hands on my head and blessed me for acceding to her wishes; and so—­following the finger of Duty—­I came here to be trampled, mangled, destroyed.  When I arrived, I found I could catch a train going north at 7.15, and I bought a return ticket, and told the agent I intended to take that train.  I walked to ‘Elm Bluff,’ and after waiting a few moments was admitted to Gen’l Darrington’s presence.  The letter which I delivered was an appeal for one hundred dollars, and it was received with an outburst of wrath, a flood of fierce and bitter denunciation of my parents.  The interview was indescribably painful, but toward its close, Gen’l Darrington relented.  He opened his safe or vault, and took out a square tin box.  Placing it on the table, he removed some papers, and counted down into my hand, five gold coins—­twenty dollars each.  When I turned to leave him, he called me back, gave me the morocco case, and stated that the sapphires were very costly, and could be sold for a large amount.  He added, with great bitterness, that he gave them, simply because they were painful souvenirs of a past, which he was trying to forget; and that he had intended them as a bridal gift to his son Prince’s wife; but as they had been bought by my mother’s mother as a present for her only child, he would send them to their original destination, for the sake of his first wife, Helena.