The Gilded Age, Complete

M >> Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner >> The Gilded Age, Complete


It was golden September also at Fallkill. And Alice sat by the open
window in her room at home, looking out upon the meadows where the
laborers were cutting the second crop of clover. The fragrance of it
floated to her nostrils. Perhaps she did not mind it. She was thinking.
She had just been writing to Ruth, and on the table before her was a
yellow piece of paper with a faded four-leaved clover pinned on it--only
a memory now. In her letter to Ruth she had poured out her heartiest
blessings upon them both, with her dear love forever and forever.

"Thank God," she said, "they will never know"

They never would know. And the world never knows how many women there
are like Alice, whose sweet but lonely lives of self-sacrifice, gentle,
faithful, loving souls, bless it continually.

"She is a dear girl," said Philip, when Ruth showed him the letter.

"Yes, Phil, and we can spare a great deal of love for her, our own lives
are so full."




APPENDIX.

Perhaps some apology to the reader is necessary in view of our failure to
find Laura's father. We supposed, from the ease with which lost persons
are found in novels, that it would not be difficult. But it was; indeed,
it was impossible; and therefore the portions of the narrative containing
the record of the search have been stricken out. Not because they were
not interesting--for they were; but inasmuch as the man was not found,
after all, it did not seem wise to harass and excite the reader to no
purpose.

THE AUTHORS