“The inclosure--ah, you have not seen it,” said Lady Wynde--“is the letter alluded to in that last page of the letter to me. You see that it has never been opened. It is a sealed document to me in every sense, although, as poor Sir Harold often told me of his secret wishes in regard to your future, I have some suspicion of its contents. Your father requested me should he die in India, to give you this letter one year after his death. The appointed time has now arrived, and I deliver into your hands the last letter your father ever wrote, and which contains his last sacred wishes in regard to you. You are to receive it as an addendum to his will, as a sacred charge, as if his voice were speaking to you from his home in Heaven!” She lifted the sealed letter, laying it in Neva’s hands. The young girl received it with an uncontrollable agitation. “I--I must read it alone,” she said brokenly. “Very well, dear. Go into your dressing-room with it, and when you have finished reading it come back to me. I have more to say to you.” Neva departed without a word, and went into the adjoining room. As the door closed behind her, Lady Wynde softly arose, crossed the floor, and peeped in upon the young girl’s privacy through the key-hole of the door. Neva was alone in her dressing-room, and was kneeling down before a low chair upon which she had laid the forged letter, as yet unopened. The baronet’s widow watched the girl as she examined the address and the seal, and then cut open the top of the letter with a pocket-knife. Neva unfolded the closely written sheet, all stamped with her father’s monogram, and with low sobs and tear-blinded eyes began to read the letter, accepting it without doubt or question as her father’s last letter to her. Lady Wynde’s eyes gleamed, and a mocking smile played about her full, sensual lips, as Neva read slowly page after page, still upon her knees, now and then pausing to kiss the handwriting she believed to be her father’s. The forger’s work had been well done. The tender pet names by which Sir Harold had loved to call his daughter were often repeated, with such protestations of affection as would most stir a loving daughter’s heart when receiving them long after the death of her father, and believing them to have been written by that father’s hand. “Oh, papa! poor, poor, papa!” the girl sobbed. “He foresaw my loneliness and desolation, and left these last words to cheer me. I will remember your wishes so often expressed in this and other letters. I will be kind and gentle and obedient to Lady Wynde. I will try to love her for your sake.” When she had grown calmer, Neva read on. As she read that her father had a last request to make of her, she smiled through her tears, and murmured: “I am glad that he has left me something to do--whatever it may be. I should like to feel that I am obeying him still, although he is in Heaven. Dear papa!--your ‘request’ is to me a sacred command, and I shall so consider it.”