Two days ago I chanced, for no special reason, to open the drawers of an old writing-table, which for years past had stood, unused, in a corner of an upper room. In one I found a rusty screw, in another a couple of dusty envelopes, in a third a piece of sealing-wax, half-a-dozen nibs, and a broken pencil. The fourth, and last drawer, was very stiff. For a long time it defied my efforts, and it was only by a great exertion of strength that I was at last able to wrench it open. To my surprise I saw two packets of letters, tied together with faded ribbon. I took them up, and then remembered, with a start, what they were. They were all in their envelopes, and all were addressed, in the same hand-writing, to Sir CHARLES CALLENDER, Bart., Curzon Street, Mayfair. They were his wife's letters, and, after the death of Sir CHARLES, whose sole executor I was, they came into my possession,--Sir CHARLES, for some inscrutable reason, never having destroyed them, although, after his wife's death, the reading of them cannot have given him much pleasure. No doubt I ought to have destroyed them. I had never read them; but there, in that forgotten drawer, they had lain, the silent dust accumulating upon them as the years rolled on. They reminded me of the story I am about to relate--a story of which, I think, no one except myself has guessed the truth, and which, in most of its details, I only knew from a paper, carefully closed, heavily sealed, and addressed to me, which I found amongst my friend's documents. It was in his hand-writing throughout, but I shall tell it in my own words, and in my own way.