In deference to my mother's wishes it was kept strictly a secret from me while my father lived.
"There was a younger sister of my mother's who was the beauty of the family; loved and admired by everybody who was acquainted with her.

It is needless to make this long letter longer by dwelling on the girl's miserable story.

You have heard it of other girls, over and over again.

She loved and trusted; she was deceived and deserted.

Alone and friendless in a foreign country; her fair fame blemished; her hope in the future utterly destroyed, she attempted to drown herself.