LOOKING FORWARD
Devoted attention to every line contained in the little package of
letters failed to develop information which appeared to be of interest
to Katherine Moore or any one else.
Carefully each line was read by Mr. Hammond and the Girl Scouts on the
afternoon of their discovery. Later the letters were given to Dr.
McClain and to Mr. Hale, Margaret Hale's father, who was a prominent
lawyer, for an equally painstaking perusal. They agreed that they were
merely a trivial collection such as any one might receive from a dozen
friends, preserved for the sake of the affection, not the value of the
communications.
There were no papers save the letters.
Only one or two seemingly unimportant details connected the letters in
any possible fashion with Katherine Moore. Three of them were signed
with the initials O. M., which may or may not have had any association
with the name Moore. In point of fact, it would have appeared a
straining of the imagination, save that the name Moore was signed to
one short note.
In any case, it was agreed that, since there was no one else to claim
them, the little package might be consigned to the girl who was
discovered as a baby in the forsaken cabin. No one had been known to
be living there at the time, so there was no reason to believe
otherwise than that the baby had been carried there and immediately
abandoned.
As Dr. McClain was at present seeing Kara daily at the Gray House, the
letters were given to him for safe delivery. Not until twenty-four
hours after was Tory Drew permitted to call and find what the
influence and effect of so unsatisfying a communication had been.
She found Kara in the big room downstairs which had been given over to
her use since her accident whenever she was living at the Gray House.
When Tory entered the room Kara must have been re-reading the letters,
since they lay open upon her lap.
"You were not disappointed over our discovery, dear? The letters do
mean something to you? You have the faith to believe that something
important to _you_ will develop from them some day? I believe it if
you do."
Kara laughed.
"Beloved Tory, if with all your imagination and sense of romance you
could find nothing of value in the old letters why expect it of a
practical, matter-of-fact, stupid person like I am? The letters are
ridiculous to my mind so far as they are supposed to have any
reference to me."
Still the gray eyes were shining and to-day Tory beheld the half
quizzical lines about the lips that belonged to the Kara of other
days.
"But if you have no faith in the letters, why do you seem so much
happier and like your old self?" she queried.
Her companion hesitated.
"Hasn't Dr. McClain told you?"
"He has told me nothing save that I might come to see you if I would
not stay too long, which is the permission he gives to all our Girl
Scouts."
Kara's voice was steady with the old-time gentle drawl.
"Promise me then not to expect too much or be too disappointed if
things do not turn out altogether well? Of course I am happier to-day,
happier than a dozen letters proclaiming me an heiress could ever make
me.
"Dr. McClain and two other surgeons who have seen me believe there is
a possibility I may be well. They are not absolutely sure. Don't look
so queer, Tory."
"I don't look queer, go on," the other girl whispered, bending her
face down so that her lips touched Kara's hair and her face could not
be seen.
"There isn't anything else to tell, except that I am to go to New York
City to be treated and to spend the winter and that Mr. Fenton and Mr.
Hammond and Dr. McClain and several other people have made the
arrangements and will pay all my expenses."
Here for the first time Kara's voice trembled.
"Who says one cannot have beautiful things happen to one even if lost
letters do prove disappointing?"
She put out her hand and caught hold of her companion's.
"Tory, you don't think I have failed to appreciate your loveliness to
me this summer. All the time when I have appeared most ungrateful I
have cared most. I won't talk about it now, only as you are an artist
you understand better than I how one may see things in a wrong
perspective. My view is clearer now whatever happens."
Tory kneeled down:
"I wish I might be Ruth to your Naomi."