and wrote a note that went
something like this:

"MR. FAIRFAX COLLINGWOOD:

"If you are the same Mr. Fairfax Collingwood who, in 1861, parted
from your mother after a disagreement, leaving a note for her
which you hoped she would read, I want to tell you that she never
saw that note.

"Joyce Kenway.

"I signed my name right out, because Father has always said that to
write an anonymous letter was the most despicable thing any one could
do. And if he ever discovered who I was, I wouldn't be ashamed to tell
him what we had done, anyway. Of course, I ran the chance of his not
being the right person, but I thought if that were so, he simply
wouldn't pay any attention to the note, and the whole thing would end
there. I addressed the letter to his hotel, and decided that it must be
mailed that very night, for he might suddenly leave there and I'd never
know where else to find him. It was then nearly ten o'clock, and I
didn't want Father or Mother to know about it, so I teased Anne into
running out to the post-office with me. He must have received it this
morning."

Cynthia had listened to this long explanation in astonished silence.
"Isn't it the most remarkable thing," she exclaimed when Joyce had
finished, "that each of us should write, I to the mother and you to the
son, and neither of us even guess what the other was doing! And that
they should meet here, just this afternoon! But there are a whole lot of
things I can't understand at all. Why, for instance, did he give the
name of Arthur Calthorpe when he came in, and pretend he was some one
else?"

"That's been puzzling me too," replied Joyce, "and I can't think of any
reason."

"But the thing that confuses me most of all," added Cynthia, "is this.
Why, if you had written that note, and had an idea that he was alive,
were _you_ so tremendously astonished when he and his mother recognized
each other? I should have thought you'd guess right away, when you saw
him at the door, who he was!"

"That's just the queer part of it!" said Joyce. "In the first place, I
never expected him to come out here at all,--at least, not right away. I
never put the name of this town in the letter, nor mentioned this house.
I supposed, of course, that he'd go piling right down to South Carolina
to find his mother, or see whether she was alive. Then, later, when
they'd made it all up (provided she was alive, which even _I_ didn't
know then), I thought they m