Was there nothing she could find to do which would offer some other subject to occupy her mind than herself and her future?
Looking absently round the room, she noticed the packet of her father's letters placed on the table by her bedside.
The first three letters that she examined, after untying the packet, were briefly written, and were signed by names unknown to her.

They all related to race-horses, and to cunningly devised bets which were certain to make the fortunes of the clever gamblers on the turf who laid them.
Absolute indifference on the part of the winners to the ruin of the losers, who were not in the secret, was the one feeling in common, which her father's correspondents presented.

In mercy to his memory she threw the letters into the empty fireplace, and destroyed them by burning.
The next letter which she picked out from the little heap was of some length, and was written in a clear and steady hand.

By comparison with the blotted scrawls which she had just burned, it looked like the letter of a gentleman.

She turned to the signature.