Then one morning when he was gone to New Orleans, and
would come home pretty soon, mother and Marie and Miggie went a
visiting to Tallahassee, or somewhere, and they never came back
again, though pa went after them as soon as he got home. Why
didn't they, Miggie?"
"Petrea was very unhappy here," Edith answered. "Mr. Bernard
abused her, as did his haughty mother, and once when he was gone
Petrea said she would go to Tallahassee to see a lady who had
visited her at Sunnybank. So she went with Marie, and Miggie, then
three years old, but did not stop in Tallahassee. They ran away to
New York, where Marie's sister lived. Here Petrea was taken sick
and died, making Marie promise that Miggie should never go back to
her bad father and his proud family. And Marie, who hated them
bitterly, all but Nina, kept her word. She wrote to Sunnybank that
both were dead, and the letter was forwarded by your grandmother
to Mr. Bernard, who had gone after his wife, but who lay drunk
many days at a hotel. The letter sobered him, and as it contained
Marie's address, he found her at last, crying bitterly for little
Miggie, up stairs asleep, but he thought her in the coffin with
her mother.
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