The Awakening and Selected Short Stories - Page 143/161

The last thing to go was a tiny bundle of letters; innocent little

scribblings that Desiree had sent to him during the days of their

espousal. There was the remnant of one back in the drawer from which he

took them. But it was not Desiree's; it was part of an old letter from

his mother to his father. He read it. She was thanking God for the

blessing of her husband's love:--

"But above all," she wrote, "night and day, I thank the good God for

having so arranged our lives that our dear Armand will never know that

his mother, who adores him, belongs to the race that is cursed with the

brand of slavery."