Cuthbert held it up to the light and endeavoured to read through, but with as little success as before. Alexander Muir had been watching him anxiously. There was a glass of water on the table, which Katie had brought for him; the old man wet his handkerchief, and with trembling hands spread it upon the hidden page. “I dinna ken what a’ thae papers are,” said Miss Jean, entering with a bundle of yellow letters tied together with a strip of old linen as yellow as themselves, “but there’s nae secrets in them, ye may look over them as ye like. What are ye doin’ to the book?” “There’s something written here,” said the old man, endeavouring vainly to conceal his anxiety. “Ane wad think there was a fortune coming to _you_, Sandy Muir,” said Miss Jean, “ye’re unco anxious to bring profit to other folk.” “I aye wished weel to my neighbours,” said Alexander, meekly, and with a little self-reproach. He felt as if it were almost selfish to be so anxious about his nephew’s fortune. In the meantime Cuthbert untied the string, and as the too jealous gum showed yet no indication of yielding, began to look over the papers. The first that came to his hands, evidently added by Miss Jean to the original heap, and ostentatiously displayed on the top, was an account for the funeral expenses of John Allenders, in which Mrs. Calder appeared debtor to William Lochhead, undertaker; unfortunately Miss Jean had not observed the rigid honesty with which it was endorsed in a very cramped female hand, “Paid by me, out of the notes left by John Allenders for his burial, leaving a balance of three pounds and a penny halfpenny for the behoof of Rose and Violet. Signed--Marget Calder.” Other tantalizing bits of writing were below this; a child’s note signed Violet, and addressed to the father in some temporary absence from home, telling how Rose had began to “flower” a collar, and how the writer herself had bought seeds with her sixpence for Mrs. Calder’s garden. Another bit of paper contained a list, in a hand more formed, of different articles of “flowering,” received from some warehouse. Then there were school accounts, for the girls, of a still earlier date, and at last Cuthbert came to a letter bearing the postmark of London and Stirling. He opened it in haste. It was a letter of commonplace condolence, beginning, “My dear Sir,” and suggesting the ordinary kind of consolation for the loss of “my dear departed sister,” and was signed by “Daniel Scott.” Lindsay had not mentioned the surname of the wife of John Allenders--this letter was evidently from her brother. Cuthbert went on with great anxiety, and very considerable excitement, just glancing up to see that the softening process carried on by Alexander Muir had not yet produced much effect, and taking no part in the conversation. The next letter in the bundle was in the same hand, and in its substance little more interesting; but its postscript brought a flush of satisfaction to Cuthbert’s eager face.