Ruby's Reward — page 356: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

In the envelope, with the will, there was found a certificate of the adoption of “Edmund Wales” by Ralph Carpenter and his wife, together with an ac- count of the whole transaction. Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter had traveled a good deal during their early married life, and once, while in the far south-west, they had come across alittle child who had been born in a mining district, The mother had died soon after the birth of her boy, and he had been left to the doubtful care which could be se- cured in that wild region. Mrs. Carpenter had be- come immediately interested in the child, and pro- posed to adopt it, if the father’s consent could be gained. This was not a very difficult matter, and the the baby was taken to San Francisco, where it was supposed, by Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter’s friends, to have been born, and no one else had ever known until now that he had been an adopted son. 7 Walter was as much surprised as any one by this unexpected disclosure, and; under any other cireui- stances, he would have wondered at Mr. Carpenter tor having made it; but looking back, he could now realize, how disappointed the noble hearted man must have been with the cold return which the boy had given him for all the care and affection he had lavished upon him; and how he must have contrasted his own (Walter’s) loving gratitude and tender atten- tions with the indifference and almost neglect of his supposed son. Edmund Carpenter was rendered speechless by what he had heard. It was athunderboltthatserved to crush him effectually, and he had not a word curthee to offer in objection to the conditions of the will. “These papers, regarding your adoption, I will re- sign into your hands at once,” Mr. Fairbanks resum- ed, ‘and now this will must be immediately probated and there must be a fair division of all that you possess. We have ascertained, among our other dis- coveries, that you have been turning all your prop- erty into money, with the intention ia fy saan quitting the country. Now this money? Sout