er or not he had seen more than Mr.
Bradshaw wished him to see, that gentleman could not tell. But there
stood the two books in their place, and when, after Master Gridley had
gone, he looked in the first volume, there was the document he had shut
up in it.

CHAPTER VII.

MYRTLE'S LETTER--THE YOUNG MEN'S PURSUIT.

"You know all about it, Olive?" Cyprian Eveleth said to his sister, after
a brief word of greeting.

"Know of what, Cyprian?"

"Why, sister, don't you know that Myrtle Hazard is missing,--gone!--gone
nobody knows where, and that we are looking in all directions to find
her?"

Olive turned very pale and was silent for a moment. At the end of that
moment the story seemed almost old to her. It was a natural ending of
the prison-life which had been round Myrtle since her earliest years.
When she got large and strong enough, she broke out of jail,--that was
all. The nursery-bar is always climbed sooner or later, whether it is a
wooden or an iron one. Olive felt as if she had dimly foreseen just such
a finishing to the tragedy of the poor girl's home bringing-up. Why
could not she have done something to prevent it? Well,--what shall we do
now, and as it is?--that is the question.

"Has she left no letter,--no explanation of her leaving in this way?"

"Not a word, so far as anybody in the village knows."

"Come over to the post-office with me; perhaps we may find a letter. I
think we shall."

Olive's sagacity and knowledge of her friend's character had not misled
her. She found a letter from Myrtle to herself, which she opened and
read as here follows:

MY DEAREST OLIVE:--Think no evil of me for what I have done. The
fire-hang-bird's nest, as Cyprian called it, is empty, and the poor bird
is flown.

I can live as I have lived no longer. This place is chilling all the
life out of me, and I must find another home. It is far, far away, and
you will not hear from me again until I am there. Then I will write to
you.

You know where I was born,--under a hot sun and in the midst of strange,
lovely scenes that I seem still to remember. I must visit them again: my
heart always yearns for them. And I must cross the sea to get
there,--the beautiful great sea that I have always longed for and that my
river has been whispering about to me ever so many years. My life is
pinched and starved here. I feel as old as aunt Silence, and I am only
fifteen,--a child she has called me within a few day