“Nay, then,” remonstrated Noah, “it was but a slip. I said I could teach you how to write a letter that should strike her to the soul. But of what avail? Timberlake is dead; his grave is the Mediterranean.” “But she lives,” hissed the daughter. “Tell me that secret concerning her, and I shall call you my best friend.” Truly, the bilious maiden had a taste for vengeance as pointed as a thorn. “Why, then,” returned Noah, hesitating with invented reluctance, “there is no reason why I should not humor your wishes. Take your pen, and I'll dictate that letter I have in my mind.” The bilious one wheeled about to a writing table which stood by her side, and while the rest of us sat silent--for the mother and myself had long before surrendered our semblance of conversation, and the unhappy dominie still pored upon the floor--Noah began with finger on forehead as one who cudgels memory. “Write her this,” said Noah. “Revenge is sweet! I have you in my power; and I shall burn you as savages burn their victim at the stake. Think not that you can escape me. I would not that death nor any evil thing should take you out of my hand for half the world.” When Noah began this evil dictation, the lime-faced one took down his opening words with greedy pen. As he proceeded, she first hesitated, and then with blanched, scared face, whirled herself upon him. Her pen fell to the floor, while her hands shook in a gust of fear. At the close she gasped: “You have read my letter!” “I have, indeed,” returned Noah. “I have repeated word for word your atrocious threats to a lady whom we will not name.” It was verity; with a memory like unto wax, Noah had recalled with every faithfulness of word and mark that menacing epistle Peg brought to me, and which was then under my private lock and key. “Yes, you wrote that letter,” repeated Noah. “And you,” coming round on the Reverend Campbell, who writhed as one in the jaws of wretchedness, unable to make a plan or frame a sentence; “and you, sir, were privy to it.” “Our dear sister”--he could not lay aside his snuffle even now--“our dear sister did indeed tell me she had sent such a note.” “You mix your tenses, sir,” retorted Noah, savagely. “She told you before it was dispatched, and you read it.” * “My dear gentlemen,” broke in the mother, in mighty agitation, “he put that letter in the post himself. Oh, gentlemen, spare my poor daughter!” With that the mother put her arm about the-younger harpy, where, like some frightened thing of sin that can escape no farther, she waited as one frozen.