"I knew it'ld surprise you, but it's as true as we're both standing in this kitchen at this minute. It was a very nice letter, and it said as how he had admired me from the first minute he saw me, but more particularly after he'd sat opposite to me at the table and eat my cranberry sauce. He said he'd always loved cranberry sauce, but as he felt he'd never tasted none until he tasted mine. I certainly never see a more complimentary letter than that letter of Mr. Kettlewell's. But it was the end of the letter where he signed his name that lit me up with the clear light of revelation. Until I see his name spelled out there in black and white, I never once believed it begun with a K. I'd thought all along as his name was Cattlewell, with a C. Far be it from me, Mrs. Lathrop, to ever have suspected as Jathrop's friend would stoop to housebreaking and to binding and gagging a lone woman, but there's other ways as his handkerchief might have got to my mouth, and I felt to know the truth. His address was on the letter, and there was nothing as could have stayed me from getting to that address as fast as steam and steel could carry me. I left in the middle of the night, and I got to New York in the morning, and I didn't have that feeling for nothing. Mr. Kettlewell was at his hotel, and in all my born days I never see a person gladder to see anybody than Mr. Kettlewell was to see me. It's marvelous what a impression a little good cooking will make on a man, even if it's only in cranberry sauce. His mouth actually hadn't stopped watering yet. Leastwise he said it hadn't, and I'd be a fool not to believe him. He begun talking about it right away, and I let him talk, just so's I could look at his shiny bald head and his red whiskers without having to think of anything else except the sound of his milk-and-honey voice. Finally he said he supposed I'd come to the city to select Jathrop's Christmas present of furnishings, and if I'd like him to help me select 'em, he'd be glad enough to go along and lend a hand. Well, nothing could of been nicer than that, now, could it? But I told him I wasn't one as traveled all the way to New York under false pretences, and that if he must have the truth, I'd never give one thought to Jathrop's present since he mentioned it. All my thought, I said, had been give to finding a handkerchief with a K onto it, which I'd washed and ironed with my own hands and brought to him, believing I must of picked it up at the Christmas dinner by mistake, and not wanting him to feel the need of it any longer. And you can believe me or not, Mrs. Lathrop, just as you feel about it, if he didn't right then and there on seeing that clue, confess that it did belong to him, and that he couldn't for the life of him remember where he'd left it."