It was here that a pile of papers came to Fred one morning, together with two or three letters for Louie, one of them in Nancy Sharp’s unmistakable handwriting. Nancy had written at intervals, feeling it her duty to keep Louie posted with regard to the house and the news of the town, every little item of which she wrote in her own peculiar style. These letters had usually interested Louie greatly, Nancy’s descriptions were so graphic and to the point. Sometimes there was a fling at Judge White, who “grew more fussy and big feelin’ all the time,” she wrote, “but hadn’t a dollar of her money in his bank. That was safe—some in a sugar-bowl, some in a tea-pot, and some in—she guessed she wouldn’t tell where, for fear it might leak out.” Godfrey Sheldon, too, came in for a share of sarcasm. “A nobody and an upstart, ridin’ with liver on the box; but she must say he kept Jack and Jill lookin’ well; if he didn’t, she would complain’ to the humanes and have him ‘rested.” Such and similar items were the substance of Nancy’s letters; and when Fred saw her handwriting on the last one received, he knew there was a budget of home news for Louie such as no one else could write, and knew, too, that in all human probability there was one item which would startle her, and he meant to be present when the blow fell. “Here is a letter from Nancy,” he said, giving it to her. “I am always interested in what the old lady says.” Louie was alone in the salon, as Mrs. Lansing and Miss Percy had gone that day to Coppet with a party. Taking the letter, she broke the seal and began to read, her eyes growing larger and darker and her face whiter as she read, “I must tell you fust of the hullabelloo there was in town when word come that the dets was awl to be pade, as soon as the clames was bro’t to Mr. Blake. Such a runnin’ of wimmen tellin’ the nuse was never seen since the run and the failure. One woman stood on her steps and yelled to the fokes passin’ up and down, four men rung the bell to call the fokes together, and Godfrey Sheldon come ni’ havin’ a fit, he was so tickled to get his money agin. Awl pade, every scent, by Mr. Lansing, they say, for of course you hain’t sung long enuff to git all that money, and fokes do say they’s somethin’ betwixt you an’ him. I hope to the land there is. He’s ’nuff site better’n that white-livered Herbert, who’s got to partin’ his hare in the middle and carryin’ a cain.” Louie read no further than this before she burst into a paroxysm of weeping such as she had not known for weeks. “Oh, this is too much! How could he?” she said aloud, and in a moment the he referred to had his arm around her, holding her so fast that she could not get away. “Louie,” he said, “I think I know what Nancy has written, and I want you to listen to me a moment.” She would not listen at first, but kept saying, “How could you? How could you?”