"Keep your tongue quiet, Betsy—keep your tongue quiet," exclaimed Old Death, with a hyena-like growl. "Never provoke irritation unnecessarily. But let's to business. Jacob is out on the watch after Tom Rain; and I told the lad to come up here before ten. And now about this letter," he continued drawing one from his pocket-book: "it proves, you see, that the child is well-born—and if the address had only been written on the outside, we might make a good thing of the matter." "Just so," observed Mrs. Bunce. "When Mr. Rainford called this afternoon he was so particular in asking me whether I had found any papers about the woman's clothes; but I declared I had not—and he was quite satisfied. He paid me, too, very handsome for the funeral expenses and all my trouble. If he was to know about that letter, Ben?" "How can he know?" exclaimed Old Death impatiently. "Now what I think," he continued in a milder tone, "is just this:—the woman Watts was reduced to such a desperate state of poverty, that she wrote this letter to the mother of the boy Charles——" "Why, of course," interrupted Mrs. Bunce. "She says as much _in_ the letter." "Will you listen to me?" growled Old Death angrily: "you don't know what I was going to observe." "Don't be cross, Ben: I won't stop you again," said the woman in a coaxing tone. "Mind you don't, then," ejaculated Bones, allowing himself to be pacified. "Well, this Sarah Watts wrote that letter, as I was saying, with the intention of sending it, no doubt, either by post or by an acquaintance to the lady in London. I think that is plain enough. Then, when she had finished writing it, something evidently made her change her mind, and resolve on coming up to London herself. This is also plain; because, if it wasn't so, why did the letter never go—and why did she come to London?" "How well you do talk, Ben," said Mrs. Bunce. "I talk to the point, I hope," observed Old Death. "Now how stands the matter? Here is a very important letter, wanting two main things to render it completely valuable to us. The first thing it wants is the name of the place from which it would have been dated, had it ever been sent: and the second thing it wants is the name of the lady to whom it was intended to be sent. In a word, it wants the address of the writer and the address of the lady to whom it was written, and who is the mother of that boy Charles." "What good would it do you to have the address of the writer, since she is dead and buried?" asked Mrs. Bunce. "Because I could then visit the place where the woman was when she wrote this letter," replied Old Death. "I could make inquiries concerning the late Sarah Watts; and I know too well how to put two and two together not to arrive at some certainty in the long run." "To be sure!" ejaculated Mrs. Bunce. "How clever you are, dear Ben." "I don't know about being clever, Betsy my dear," returned the hideous old man; "but _this_ I do think—that I'm rather wide awake."