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expand2003 (1)
1Author:  Holmes Mary Jane 1825-1907Add
 Title:  Dora Deane, or, The East India uncle; and Maggie Miller, or, Old Hagar's secret  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: “Write to me, Dora, and tell me of yourself, that I may judge something of your character. Tell me, too, if you ever think of the lonesome old man, who, each night of his life, remembers you in his prayers, asking that if on earth he may never look on Fannie's child, he may at last meet and know her in the better land. And now farewell, my daughter, mine by adoption, if from no other cause. “What does she say?” cried Mrs. Deane and Alice, crowding around her, while with a rueful face she read that Dora would be delighted to meet Uncle Nat at Locust Grove, but could not come quite so soon as they wished to have her. “I cannot possibly come, as I have promised to be present at the dressing of the bride. “Do you fancy some direful calamity has befallen me, because I have not written to you for more than a week? Away with your fears, then, for nothing worse has come upon me than a badly broken limb, which will probably keep me a prisoner here for two months or more. Now don't be frightened, Rosa. I am not crippled for life, and even if I were, I could love you just the same, while you, I'm sure, would love me more. “They say 'tis a mighty bad wind which blows no one any good, and so, though I verily believe I suffer all a man can suffer with a broken bone, yet, when I look at the fair face of Maggie Miller, I feel that I would not exchange this high old bed, to enter which, needs a short ladder, even for a seat by you on that three-legged stool, behind the old writing-desk. I never saw anything like her in my life. Everything she thinks, she says, and as to flattering her, it can't be done. I've told her a dozen times at least that she was beautiful, and she didn't mind it any more than Rose does, when I flatter her. Still, I fancy if I were to talk to her of love, it might make a difference, and perhaps I shall, ere I leave the place. “I grant your request,” she said, “and take you for a sister well beloved. I had a half-sister once, they say, but she died when a little babe. I never looked upon her face, and connected with her birth there was too much of sorrow and humiliation for me to think much of her, save as of one who, under other circumstances, might have been dear to me. And yet, as I grow older, I often find myself wishing she had lived, for my father's blood was in her veins. But I do not even know where her grave was made, for we only heard one winter morning, years ago, that she was dead, with the mother who bore her. Forgive me, Maggie dear, for saying so much about that little child. Thoughts of you, who are to be my sister, make me think of her, who, had she lived, would have been a young lady now, nearly your own age. So in the place of her, whom, knowing, I would have loved, I adopt you, sweet Maggie Miller, my sister and my friend. May heaven's choicest blessings rest on you forever, and no shadow come between you and the one you have chosen for your husband. To my partial eyes he is worthy of you, Maggie, royal in bearing and queenly in form though you be, and that you may be happy with him will be the daily prayer of “If I had known,” she wrote, “I should have sot the table in the parlor certing, for though I'm plain and homespun, I know as well as the next one what good manners is, and do my endeavors to practise it. But do tell a body,” she continued, “where you was, muster day in Wooster. I knocked and pounded enough to raise the dead, and nobody answered. I never noticed you was deaf when you was here, though Betsey Jane thinks she did. If you be, I'll send you up a receipt for a kind of intment which Miss Sam Babbit invented, and which cures everything.
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