No, Anna did not, and she looked so puzzled that Adah, anxious to set the matter right, continued: 

“I remember it particularly, because it was spelled A-n-n-i-e instead of Anna.”

Adah was not prepared for the sudden start, the look almost of terror in Anna’s eyes, or for the color which stained the usually colorless face.  In all the world there was but one person who ever called her Annie, or wrote it so, and that person was Charlie.  Had he written at last, and if so, why had she never known it?  Could it be her proud mother had withheld what would have been life to her slowly dying daughter?  It was terrible to suspect such a thing, and Anna struggled to cast the thought aside, saying to Adah.  “Was there anything else peculiar about it?”

“Nothing, except that ’twas inclosed in a mourning envelope, sealed with wax, and the letter on the seal was—­was—­”

“Oh, pray think quick.  You have not forgotten.  You must not forget,” and Anna’s soft blue eyes grew dark with intense excitement as Adah tried to recall the initial on that seal.

“She had not noticed particularly, she did not suppose it was important.  She was not certain, but she believed—­yes, she was nearly sure—­the letter was ‘M.’”

“Oh, you do not know how much good you have done me,” Anna cried, and laying her throbbing head on Adah’s neck, she wept a torrent of tears, wrung out by the knowing that Charlie had not forgotten her quite.  He had written, and that of itself was joy, even though he loved another.

“The initial was ’M.’—­you are sure, you are sure,” she kept whispering, while Adah soothed the poor head, wondering at Anna’s agitation, and in a measure guessing the truth, the old story, love, whose course had not run smoothly.

“And mother took it,” Anna said at last, growing more composed.

“Yes, she said she would bring it to you,” was Adah’s reply.

For several minutes Anna sat looking out upon the snowy landscape, her usually smooth brow wrinkled with thought, and her eyes gleaming with a strange, new light.  There was a shadow on her fair face, a grieved, injured expression, as if her mother’s treachery had hurt her cruelly.  She knew the letter was withheld, and her first impulse was to demand it at once.  But Anna dreaded a scene, and dreaded her mother, too, and after a moment’s reflection that her Charlie would write again, and Adah, who now went regularly to the office, would get it and bring it to her, she said: 

“Does mother always look over the letters?”

“Not at first,” was Adah’s reply, “but now she meets me at the door, and takes them from my hand.”

Anna was puzzled.  Turning again to Adah, she said: 

“I wish you to go always to the office, and if there comes another letter for me, bring it up at once.  It’s mine.”