Her mother made the advances towards a
marriage, to the surprise, not to say horror of her daughter, and she actually
found a relief when she discovered traces of what struck her as insanity - or a
morbid desperation, bordering on that dire calamity - in the earlier letters of
that ill-fated woman. The answers of Hovey were coarse and illiterate, though
they manifested a sufficient desire to obtain the hand of a woman of singular
personal attractions, and whose great error he was willing to overlook for the
advantage of possessing one, every way so much his superior, and, who, it also
appeared was not altogether destitute of money. The remainder of this part of
the correspondence was brief, and it was soon confined to a few communications
on business, in which the miserable wife hastened the absent husband in his
preparations to abandon a world, which there was a sufficient reason to think
was as dangerous to one of the parties, as it was disagreeable to the other. But
a sincere expression had escaped her mother, by which Judith could get a clue to
the motives that had induced her to marry Hovey, or Hutter, and this she found
was that feeling of resentment which so often tempts the injured to inflict
wrongs on themselves, by way of heaping coals on the heads of those through whom
they have suffered. Judith had enough of the spirit of that mother, to
comprehend this sentiment, and for a moment did she see the exceeding folly
which permitted such revengeful feelings to get the ascendancy.
    There, what may be called the historical part of the papers ceased. Among
the loose fragments, however, was an old newspaper that contained a proclamation
offering a reward for the apprehension of certain free-booters by name, among
which was that of Thomas Hovey. The attention of the girl was drawn to the
proclamation and to this particular name, by the circumstance that black lines
had been drawn under both, in ink. Nothing else was found among the papers that
could lead to a discovery of either the name or the place of residence of the
wife of Hutter. All the dates, signatures, and addresses, had been cut from the
letters, and wherever a word occurred in the body of the communications, that
might furnish a clue, it was scrupulously erased. Thus Judith found all her
hopes of ascertaining who her parents were, defeated, and she was obliged to
fall back on her own resources and habits for every thing connected with the
future. Her recollection of her mother's manners, conversation, and sufferings
filled up many a gap in the historical facts she had