the writer sealed
it with an air of obvious relief.

That done, he wrote another letter, the composition of which, although
it engaged his care, was apparently so much pleasanter, that perhaps the
doing of it was chosen on the same principle as one hears a farce after
a tragedy, in order to sleep the more easily.

This second letter was to a lady. When it was written, Trenholme pulled
an album from a private drawer, and looked long and with interested
attention at the face of the lady to whom he had written. It was the
face of a young, handsome girl, who bore herself proudly. The fashion of
the dress would have suggested to a calculating mind that the portrait
had been taken some years before; but what man who imagines himself a
lover, in regarding the face of the absent dear one in the well-known
picture, adds in thought the marks of time? If he had been impartial he
would have asked the portrait if the face from which it was taken had
grown more proud and cold as the years went by, or more sad and
gentle--for, surely, in this work-a-day world of ours, fate would not be
likely to have gifts in store that would wholly satisfy those eager,
ambitious eyes; but, being a man no wiser than many other men, he looked
at the rather faded phonograph with considerable pleasure, and asked no
questions.

It grew late as he contemplated the lady's picture, and, moreover, he
was not one, under any excuse, to spend much time in idleness. He put
away his album, and then, having personally locked up his house and said
good-night to his housekeeper, he went upstairs.

Yet, in spite of all that Trenholme's pleasure in the letter and the
possession of the photograph might betoken, the missive, addressed to a
lady named Miss Rexford, was not a love-letter. It ran thus:--

I cannot even feign anger against "Dame Fortune," that, by so
unexpected a turn of her wheel, she should be even now bringing you
to the remote village where for some time I have been forced to make
my home, and where it is very probable I shall remain for some years
longer. I do, of course, unfeignedly regret the financial misfortune
which, as I understand, has made it necessary for Captain Rexford
to bring you all out to this young country; yet to me the pleasure of
expecting such neighbours must far exceed any other feeling with
which I regard your advent.

I am exceedingly glad if I have been able to be of service to Captain
Rex