’It is very formal,’ said she. ’There is no mistake about it. "_Miss Wilhelmina Stuart Douglas_"—when was I ever called that before? And "_Inver-Mudal, Sutherlandshire, N.B._" He should have added _Europe_, as if he was sending it from the moon. Well, it is clearly meant for me, any way—oh, and open too——’ The next minute all the careless amusement fled from her face; her cheeks grew very white, and a frightened, startled look sprang to her eyes. She but caught the first few lines— _’O wilt thou be my dear love?_ _(Meenie and Meenie)_ _O wilt thou be my ain love?_ _(My sweet Meenie)?_ and then it was with a kind of shiver that her glance ran over the rest of it; and her heart was beating so that she could not speak; and there was a mist before her eyes. ’Maggie,’ she managed to say at length—and she hurriedly folded up the paper again and placed it on the table with the others—’I should not have read it—it was not meant for me—it was not meant that I should read it—come away, come away, Maggie.’ She took the younger girl out of the room, and herself shut the door, firmly, although her fingers were all trembling. ’Maggie,’ she said, ’you must promise never to tell any one that you gave me that letter—that I saw it——’ ’But what is the matter, Meenie?’ the smaller girl said in bewilderment, for she could see by the strange half-frightened look of Miss Douglas’s face that something serious had happened. ’Well, it is nothing—it is nothing,’ she forced herself to say. ’It will be all right. I shouldn’t have read the letter—it was not meant for me to see—but if you say nothing about it, no harm will be done. That’s all; that’s all. And now I am going to see if the children are ready that are to go by the mail-car.’ ’But I will go with you, Meenie.’ Then the girl seemed to recollect herself; and she glanced round at the interior of the cottage, and at the little girl, with an unusual kind of look. ’No, no, not this morning, Maggie,’ she said. ’You have plenty to do. Good-bye—good-bye!’ and she stooped and kissed her, and patted her on the shoulder, and left, seeming anxious to get away and be by herself. Maggie remained there in considerable astonishment. What had happened? Why should she not go to help with the children? and why good-bye—when Meenie would be coming along the road in less than an hour, as soon as the mail-car had left? And all about the reading of something contained in that folded sheet of paper. However, the little girl wisely resolved that, whatever was in that letter, she would not seek to know it, nor would she speak of it to any one, since Meenie seemed so anxious on that point; and so she set about her domestic duties again—looking forward to the end of these and the resumption of her knitting of her brother’s jersey.