omewhere before. She held it before her cousin that she
might see it.

"It is Hughie Fleming's writing! I know it well," said Betsey.

"It looks as if it had never been opened," Elizabeth said, turning it
over and over in her hand. "How strange! My father must surely have
read it?"

"Who knows? It is possible he never did."

"I wonder if I should keep it and speak to him about it?"

Betsey shook her head.

"It isn't likely he'd remember it, and it might trouble him. It is
about that old trouble likely."

"Perhaps I should drop it into the embers?"

"It is hard to say. I should hate to know from it anything that would
make me think less of poor Hugh."

"But it may be quite different. Ought I to open it? My father gave all
the papers to me to examine. I wonder if I should open it, cousin?"

Miss Betsey took the letter in her hand and looked at it for a minute or
two.

"It looks like a message from the dead," said she.

"Open it, cousin. You remember him and his trouble better than I can.
Open it, and if there is nothing in it that his friends would be glad to
know, you shall burn it without a word."

Betsey still hesitated.

"It comes from the dead," said she, but she opened it at last, cutting
round the large seal with a pair of scissors. But their hesitation as
to what they ought to do was not over. There was an inclosure addressed
to David Fleming, at which Betsey looked as doubtfully as ever, and then
she gave it to Elizabeth. There were only a few words in the first
letter:

"Honoured Sir:--I write to confess the sin I sinned against you, though
you must know it already. I ask your forgiveness, and I send this money
as the first payment of what I owe you, and if I live, full restitution
shall be made. If my father will read a letter of mine, will you take
the trouble to give him the lines I send with this?"

And then was signed the name of Hugh Fleming. It was only a hint of the
sad story they knew something of before. There was an American bank
bill for a small sum, and the inclosure to his father, and that was all.

"Poor Hughie! poor dear, bonnie laddie!" said Betsey softly. "Can it be
possible that your father never opened or read this? It was written
within a week of the poor boy's death," added she, looking at the date
on the letter.

"My father never could have opened it or Mr Fleming would have had
this," said Elizabeth, holding up the inclosed note, "I wonder how it