For it was ever the dearest in
the year to me, and is now. But that evening, when I came home, in
a very ill humor, for the first time I found the coveted letter.
It told me of the death of my two older brothers and of my favorite
aunt. In a postscript my father added that Lieutenant B----, Elizabeth's
affianced husband, had died in the city hospital at Copenhagen.
She herself was living among strangers. She had chosen her lover
when the family demanded of her that she give him up as a hopeless
invalid. They thought it all for her good. Of her I should have
expected nothing less. But she shall tell the story of that herself.
I read the letter through, then lay down upon my bed and wept. When
I arose, it was to go to the owners of my paper with a proposition
to buy it. They laughed at me at first; asked to see my money. As
a reporter for the news bureau I had saved up $75, rather because
I had no time to spend it than with any definite notion of what I
was going to do with it. This I offered to them, and pointed out
that the sale of the old type, which was all that was left of the
paper beside the goodwill, would bring no more.
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