My uncle glanced up, carelessly at first, but as soon as he saw the paper he stretched out his hand for it, and looked eager.  It did indeed seem as if it were a hundred years old; yellow, crumpled, torn.  It had been folded in the clumsy old way which was customary before the invention of envelopes; the part of the page containing the address had been torn out.  He read a few words, and the color mounted in his cheek.

“Where did you say you found it, Princess?” he said.

“On the cellar stairs, papa; I went down to find Fido, and he was playing with it.”

“What is it, Joseph?” said Aunt Sarah, in tones a shade more eager than their wont.

“I do not know, my dear,” replied my uncle; “it is very old,” and he went on reading with a more and more sobered face.

“Robert,” said he, turning to the waiter, “do you know where this paper could have come from?  Have any old papers been carried down from the garret, to light the fire in the furnace?”

“No, sir,” said Robert, “not that I know, sir.”

“There are whole barrels of old papers under the eaves in the garret,” said Aunt Sarah; “I have always meant to have them burned up; I dare say this came out of one of them, in some way;” and she resumed her habitual expression of nonchalance.

“Perhaps so,” said Uncle Jo, folding up the paper and putting it in his pocket.  “I will look, after breakfast.”

She glanced up, again surprised, and said, “Why? is it of any importance?”

“Oh, no, no,” said he hastily, with a shade of embarrassment in his voice, “it is only an old letter, but I thought there might be more from the same person.”

“Who was it?” said Aunt Sarah, languidly.

“I don’t know; only the first name is signed,” said he evasively; and the placid lady asked no more.  The children were busy with Fido, and breakfast went on, but I watched my uncle’s face.  I had never seen it look just as it looked then.  What could that old yellow letter have been?  My magnetic sympathy with my uncle told me that he was deeply moved.

At dinner-time my uncle was late, and Aunt Sarah said, with a little less than her usual dignity, “I never did see such a man as Mr. Norton, when he takes a notion in his head.  He’s been all the morning rummaging in clouds of dust in the garret, to find more of those old letters.”

“Who wrote it, Auntie?” said I.

“Heaven knows,” said she; “some woman or other, fifty years ago.  He says her name was Esther.”

“Did you read it?” I asked tremblingly.  Already I felt a shrinking sense of regard for the unknown Esther.

Aunt Sarah looked at me with almost amused surprise.  “Read it, child? no, indeed!  What do I care what that poor soul wrote half a century ago.  But your uncle’s half out of his head about her, and he’s had all the servants up questioning them back and forth till they are nearly as mad as he is.  Cook says she has found several of them on the cellar stairs in the last few weeks; but she saw they were so old she threw them into the fire, and never once looked at them; and when she said that, your uncle just groaned.  I never did see such a man as he is when he gets a notion in his head,”—­she repeated, hopelessly.