"I'm such a stupid old fellow that I can't easily finish what some other person has begun. Suppose we destroy this letter, and I begin a new one for you. I'll write one as long as you like, if you'll come into the office, where I can find a desk." "Oh, good!" "But about this one which your mother began--suppose we have a secret about it?" Trixy hesitated; she dearly loved a secret, but of late her secrets had not been as well kept as she would like. Still, she promised, and the new letter was soon under way, and at the top was written, "Dictated to Rear Admiral Allison, retired, by Her Serene Highness the Infanta Trixy." The Admiral put the original and uncompleted letter into his pocket, intending to burn it and destroy the ashes, although what might happen, should there be any enquiries for it, he was sure he did not know; perhaps it might be well for him to hurry off to Washington, or somewhere. When the new letter was completed Trixy and the Admiral took it to the post-office, and the old man, in endeavoring to impress upon Trixy the advisability of keeping the matter a secret while both of them remained at Old Point, exerted his diplomatic faculties to an extent unparalleled during his entire term of service as an officer. He loathed the idea of teaching duplicity to a child, but in the circumstances it seemed entirely justifiable. As the day waned, most of the ladies retired to dress for dinner, and Trif, whose conscience had been reproaching her all day for neglect of her husband, to whom she knew her letters were unspeakably welcome, and to whom she dearly loved to write when she chanced to be away from him, determined to finish the letter begun the day before. "Fenie," she soon said through the door between the rooms, "have you been to my portfolio?" "No, dear. I've done no writing." "How strange. I'd begun a letter to Phil, and now I can't find it." Fenie said something playful about mislaid affection, but Trif did not laugh, for she remembered what she had written. Still, why should she worry? No one but the chambermaid could have been in the room, and she doubted whether colored chambermaids at the South could read. The letter would turn up in the course of time; meanwhile she would write a hasty note to Phil and enclose Trixy's, just as it was, in time for the mail by the evening boat, which would close in a few minutes, and Trixy, who never was specially dressed for dinner, could take the letter down to the office.