raphic competition.
The stamps also were affixed very evenly, and the envelope was
beautifully sealed with the full Monk coat done in black wax. These, as
experience told him, were signs that his father had something important
to communicate, since otherwise everything connected with his letters
was much more casual. Further, to speak at hazard, he should judge that
this matter, whatever it might be, was not altogether disagreeable to
the writer.

Mary's letter also had its peculiarities. She always wrote in a large,
loose scrawl, running the words into one another after the idle fashion
which was an index to her character. In this instance, however, the
fault had been carried to such an extreme that the address was almost
illegible; indeed, Morris wondered that the letter had not been delayed.
The stamps, too, were affixed anyhow, and the envelope barely closed.

"Something has happened," he thought to himself. Then he opened Mary's
letter. It was dated Tuesday, that is, two days before, and ran:

"Dearest,--My father is dead, my poor old father, and now I have nobody
but you left in the world. Thank God, at the last he was without pain
and, they thought, insensible; but I know he wasn't, because he squeezed
my hand. Some of his last words that could be understood were, 'Give
my love to Morris.' Oh! I feel as though my heart would break. After
my mother's death till you came into my life, he was everything to
me--everything, everything. I can't write any more.

"Your loving "Mary."

"P.S. Don't trouble to come out here. It is no good. He is to be buried
to-morrow, and next day I am going 'en retraite' for a month, as I must
have time to get over this--to accustom myself to not seeing him every
morning when I come down to breakfast. You remember my French friend,
Gabrielle d'Estree? Well; she is a nun now, a sub-something or other in
a convent near here where they take in people for a payment. Somehow she
heard my father was dead, and came to see me, and offered to put me
up at the convent, which has a beautiful large garden, for I have been
there. So I said yes, for I shan't feel lonely with her, and it will be
a rest for a month. I shall write to you sometimes, and you needn't be
afraid, they won't make me a Roman Catholic. Your father objected at
first, but now he quite approves; indeed, I told him at last that I
meant to go whether he approved or not. It seems it doesn't matter
from a business point of view,