Mrs. Cragg looked through the letter. It bore a date two years before this time, and was very kind, even affectionate, begging Mr. Dale not to hurry back, but to take a few days' extra holiday if he felt inclined. Mrs. Cragg put that down and opened another. Much the same in kind. A third and a fourth still gave no information. Then she took up two or three more, and in one she found a difference. Instead of "Dear Mr. Dale," it began "Dear Sir"; instead of "Yours sincerely," it ended "Yours faithfully." Mrs. Cragg's eyes fell on a sentence near the beginning: "Since you say that you have not done it, and declare yourself incapable of any such act, I can only reply that I sincerely wish things may be so. I have resolved not to prosecute, but it is impossible that I—" The page ended here, and at this instant the opening of the front door awakened Mrs. Cragg to a sense of her position. She heard Dot's little shrill voice, and Pattie's softer tones asking somebody, "Where was Mrs. Cragg?" In a moment they might come in. Mrs. Cragg had no strong objections to her present position from motives of truth and honour, but she did very much object to being found out, and she went hot all over with fright. There was no time to restore the letters to their envelope. She thrust them loosely into the box, shut the lid, turned her key with some difficulty, drew it out, and dropped the bunch into her pocket. Then she whisked across the room to an old chiffonier in the farthest corner, and made believe to be hunting in a drawer. "Ma-ma!" cried Dot's little voice, as the two came in; "Ma-ma, I'se had a clumble!" "Jane said you were here," Pattie added. "Dot fell down and hurt her leg, and so I brought her home." "And I didn't cly, ma-ma, not at all," protested Dot. "Pattie said I was blave. And my leg hurted—oh, ever so much." "Oh!" Pattie's face changed as she saw the chest of drawers and the boxes. "Yes, those were brought by young Waters." Mrs. Cragg was too busy to look Pattie in the face. "I told him to put them here, and to come again to be paid. Rubbish mostly, I suppose. You'll have to see if they are worth keeping." "Yes; thank you. I think I had better have them in my room." "They'll lumber you up there." "It doesn't matter. May I have something to put on Dot's leg?" "How did she come to do such a stupid thing?" "But I wasn't scupid, not one bit," declared Dot in an injured tone. "It was a dreat scupid dog what runned against me, and clumbled me down." Pattie devoted herself to displaying and doctoring the grazed little leg. Dot talked vigorously all the while, with a goodly amount of self-praise on the score of her own courage. She was very proud of not having been betrayed into tears; and presently she stumped off, anxious to display her lameness to others. Pattie stood looking at the two boxes. "That one's locked," remarked Mrs. Cragg, unable to let the matter alone. "Yes." "What's in it?"