My uncle came in flushed and tired.  Nothing was said about the letters till, just as dinner was over, he said suddenly:—­

“Robert, if you find any more of these old papers anywhere, bring them to me at once.  And give orders to all the servants that no piece of old paper with writing on it is to be destroyed without my seeing it.”

“Yes, sir,” said Robert, without changing a muscle of his face, but I saw that he too was of Mrs. Norton’s opinion as to his master’s oddity when he once got a notion in his head.

“Who was the lady, papa?” said little Agnes.  “Did you know her?”

“My dear, the letter is as old as papa is himself,” said he.  “I think the lady died when papa was a little baby.”

“Then what makes you care so much, papa?” persisted Agnes.

“I can’t tell you, little one,” said he, kissing her, and tossing her up in the air; but he looked at me.

In the early twilight that afternoon I found my uncle lying with closed eyes on the lounge in the library.  He was very tired by his long forenoon’s work in the garret.  I sat down on the floor and stroked his dear old white hair.

“Pet,” he said, without opening his eyes, “that letter had the whole soul of a woman in it.”

“I thought so, dear,” said I, “by your face.”

After a long interval he said:  “I could not find a word more of her writing; I might have known I should not;” and again, after a still longer silence, “Would you like to read it, Nell?”

“I am not sure, Uncle Jo,” I said.  “It seems hardly right.  I think she would not so much mind your having it, because you are a man; but another woman! no, uncle dear, I think the letter belongs to you.”

“Oh, you true woman-hearted darling,” he said, kissing me; “but some day I think I shall want you to read it with me.  She would not mind your reading it, if she knew you as I do.”

Just then Aunt Sarah came into the room, and we said no more.

Several days passed by, and the mysterious letter was forgotten by everybody except my uncle and me.

One bitterly cold night we were sitting around a blazing coal fire in the library.  It was very late.  Aunt Sarah was asleep in her chair; my uncle was reading.  Suddenly the door opened and Robert came in, bringing a letter on his little silver tray:  it was past eleven o’clock; the evening mail had been brought in long before.

“Why, what is that, Robert?” said Uncle Jo, starting up a little alarmed.

“One of them old letters, sir,” replied Robert; “I just got it on the cellar stairs, sir.”

My uncle took the letter hastily.  Robert still stood as if he had more to say; and his honest, blank face looked stupefied with perplexity.

“If you please, sir,” he began, “it’s the queerest thing ever I saw.  That letter’s been put on them stairs, sir, within the last five minutes.”

“Why, Robert, what do you mean?” said my uncle, thoroughly excited.