"I will do my utmost, madam, that your letter shall reach the hands for which I am sure it was intended; but that may take some time, my only clue to Mr. Roy's whereabouts being the branch house at Melbourne. I can not think he is dead, because such tidings pass rapidly from one to another in our colonial communities, and he was too much beloved for his death to excite no concern. "I make this long explanation because it strikes me you may be a lady, a friend or relative of Mr. Roy's, concerning whom he employed me to make some inquiries, only you say so very little--absolutely nothing--of yourself in your letter, that I can not be at all certain if you are the same person. She was a governess in a family named Dalziel, living at St. Andrews. He said he had written to that family repeatedly, but got no answer, and then asked me, if any thing resulted from my inquiries, to write to him to the care of our Melbourne house. But no news ever came, and I never wrote to him, for which my wife still blames me exceedingly. She thanks you, dear madam, for the kind things you say about our poor child, though meant for another person. We have seven boys, but little Bell was our youngest, and our hearts' delight. She died after six hours' illness. "Again begging you to pardon my unconscious offense in reading a stranger's letter, and the length of this one, I remain your very obedient servant, R. Roy "P.S.--I ought to say that this Mr. Robert Roy seemed between thirty-five and forty, tall, dark-haired, walked with a slight stoop. He had, I believe, no near relatives whatever, and I never heard of his having been married." Unquestionably Miss Williams did well in retiring to her chamber and locking the door before she opened the letter. It is a mistake to suppose that at thirty-five or forty--or what age?--women cease to feel. I once was walking with an old maiden lady, talking of a character in a book. "He reminded me," she said, "of the very best man I ever knew, whom I saw a good deal of when I was a girl." And to the natural question, was he alive, she answered, "No; he died while he was still young." Her voice kept its ordinary tone, but there came a slight flush on the cheek, a sudden quiver over the whole withered face--she was some years past seventy--and I felt I could not say another word. Nor shall I say a word now of Fortune Williams, when she had read through and wholly taken in the contents of this letter.