"I don't know; only the first name is signed," said he evasively; and the placid lady asked no more. The children were busy with Fido, and breakfast went on, but I watched my uncle's face. I had never seen it look just as it looked then. What could that old yellow letter have been? My magnetic sympathy with my uncle told me that he was deeply moved. At dinner-time my uncle was late, and Aunt Sarah said, with a little less than her usual dignity, "I never did see such a man as Mr. Norton, when he takes a notion in his head. He's been all the morning rummaging in clouds of dust in the garret, to find more of those old letters." "Who wrote it, Auntie?" said I. "Heaven knows," said she; "some woman or other, fifty years ago. He says her name was Esther." "Did you read it?" I asked tremblingly. Already I felt a shrinking sense of regard for the unknown Esther. Aunt Sarah looked at me with almost amused surprise. "Read it, child? no, indeed! What do I care what that poor soul wrote half a century ago. But your uncle's half out of his head about her, and he's had all the servants up questioning them back and forth till they are nearly as mad as he is. Cook says she has found several of them on the cellar stairs in the last few weeks; but she saw they were so old she threw them into the fire, and never once looked at them; and when she said that, your uncle just groaned. I never did see such a man as he is when he gets a notion in his head,"--she repeated, hopelessly. My uncle came in flushed and tired. Nothing was said about the letters till, just as dinner was over, he said suddenly:-- "Robert, if you find any more of these old papers anywhere, bring them to me at once. And give orders to all the servants that no piece of old paper with writing on it is to be destroyed without my seeing it." "Yes, sir," said Robert, without changing a muscle of his face, but I saw that he too was of Mrs. Norton's opinion as to his master's oddity when he once got a notion in his head. "Who was the lady, papa?" said little Agnes. "Did you know her?" "My dear, the letter is as old as papa is himself," said he. "I think the lady died when papa was a little baby." "Then what makes you care so much, papa?" persisted Agnes. "I can't tell you, little one," said he, kissing her, and tossing her up in the air; but he looked at me. In the early twilight that afternoon I found my uncle lying with closed eyes on the lounge in the library. He was very tired by his long forenoon's work in the garret. I sat down on the floor and stroked his dear old white hair. "Pet," he said, without opening his eyes, "that letter had the whole soul of a woman in it." "I thought so, dear," said I, "by your face." After a long interval he said: "I could not find a word more of her writing; I might have known I should not;" and again, after a still longer silence, "Would you like to read it, Nell?"