Chapter VI. Mrs. Crawford's Letter - Page 2

"I am beginning to understand the charms of home. To go out into the world from here will be like taking a cold shower bath."

"Never forget, Carl, that you will be welcome back, whenever you feel like coming," said Gilbert, laying his band affectionately on Carl's shoulder. "We all like you here."

"Thank you, old fellow! I appreciate the kindness I have received here; but I must strike out for myself."

"How do you feel about it, Carl?"

"I hope for the best. I am young, strong and willing to work. There must be an opening for me somewhere."

The next morning, just after breakfast, a letter arrived for Carl, mailed at Edgewood Center.

"Is it from your father?" asked Gilbert.

"No; it is in the handwriting of my stepmother. I can guess from that that it contains no good news."

He opened the letter, and as he read it his face expressed disgust and annoyance.

"Read it, Gilbert," he said, handing him the open sheet.

This was the missive:

"CARL CRAWFORD:--AS your father has a nervous attack, brought on by your misconduct, he has authorized me to write to you. As you are but sixteen, he could send for you and have you forcibly brought back, but deems it better for you to follow your own course and suffer the punishment of your obstinate and perverse conduct. The boy whom you sent here proved a fitting messenger. He seems, if possible, to be even worse than yourself. He was very impertinent to me, and made a brutal and unprovoked attack on my poor boy, Peter, whose devotion to your father and myself forms an agreeable contrast to your studied disregard of our wishes.

"Your friend had the assurance to ask for a weekly allowance for you while a voluntary exile from the home where you have been only too well treated. In other words, you want to be paid for your disobedience. Even if your father were weak enough to think of complying with this extraordinary request, I should do my best to dissuade him."

"Small doubt of that!" said Carl, bitterly.

"In my sorrow for your waywardness, I am comforted by the thought that Peter is too good and conscientious ever to follow your example. While you are away, he will do his utmost to make up to your father for his disappointment in you. That you may grow wise in time, and turn at length from the error of your ways, is the earnest hope of your stepmother,

Anastasia Crawford."

"It makes me sick to read such a letter as that, Gilbert," said Carl. "And to have that sneak and thief--as he turned out to be--Peter, set up as a model for me, is a little too much."

"I never knew there were such women in the world!" returned Gilbert. "I can understand your feelings perfectly, after my