Without a
penny, he would be a great man, with a great future; but you are only a
pretty little woman with a fortune, who has thought a great lot of
herself, and far too much of herself only, when she wrote that letter."
"How do you know what is in it?" There was agony and challenge at once in
the other's voice. "Because I read it--oh, don't look so shocked! I'd do
it again. I knew just how to act when I'd read it. I steamed it open and
closed it up again. Then I wrote to you. I'm not sorry I did it. My
motive was a good one. I wanted to help him. I wanted to understand
everything, so that I'd know best what to do. Though he's so far above us
in birth and position, he seemed in one way like our own. That's the way
it is in new countries like this. We don't think of lots of things that
you finer people in the old countries do, and we don't think evil till it
trips us up. In a new country all are strangers among the pioneers, and
they have to come together. This town is only twenty years old, and
scarcely anybody knew each other at the start. We had to take each other
on trust, and we think the best as long as we can. Mr. Crozier came to
live with us, and soon he was just part of our life--not a boarder; not
some one staying the night who paid you what he owed you in the morning.
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