The post-mark was foreign, and there was something in a letter addressed to her by that name, which struck her as being so strange that she did not open it, but folding it again in her brother’s envelope, she waited till she could retire to peruse its contents. She continued to perform her part of hostess at the breakfast-table, and told herself it must be a begging letter, from some one, perhaps, who had known Mr. Cresford at Verdun. Still the letter haunted her, and she could scarcely smile at the gay jests which passed round the breakfast-table, or listen to the news and gossip contained in the correspondence of the other members of the society. The outside was so covered with post-marks, and various directions, that she had not remarked in what sort of hand the name was written, and she quietly took it out of the envelope, just to see if it did look like a begging letter. Her former name always made her shudder, she could not tell why, and she had often reproached herself for the feeling, as an unkind and ungrateful one towards the memory of him who was gone. It was that strange instinct which had made her so quickly put this letter aside, and it was with an unaccountable trepidation that she again drew it forth to examine the hand-writing. She looked and looked again, till her eyes swam. It was very like the writing which was only too familiar to her. It was,—it must be his writing,—she could not be mistaken; only it was impossible.—quite impossible. Yet it might contain his last behests, which had, from some cause, never been delivered before. She could not open it. She hastily concealed it, and turning deadly pale, she sat, scarcely conscious of what passed around her, till the last person had been helped to his last cup of tea. She longed to know the contents, but there came a sickness over her heart, which made her postpone the dreaded moment. At length the company rose one by one, and straggled towards the windows. She summoned all her might, and walked steadily to the door—she sought her own boudoir, and seating herself upon the sofa, she again unfolded the envelope, she again gazed on the outside—she had not yet courage to break the seal. There was something dreadful in thus receiving the dying injunctions of one husband, one who had loved her, too, so passionately, in reading the ebullitions of his vehement affection, when she was the adoring wife of another. She felt as though he were about to speak to her from the grave.