the only love-letters I ever saw."

"Are they, indeed?"

The sharp questioning look startled Agatha. She remembered that first
letter of Nathanael's--perhaps he was vexed that she had apparently
forgotten it--the letter which had been such a solemn epoch in her young
life. She coloured vividly and painfully.

"I mean--that is"--

Her husband looked another way. "You shall have these letters if you so
much desire it."

"Thank you. I would like to keep something of your mother's. And she was
indeed so happy in her marriage?"

"Very happy, Anne Valery says. My father's was not a perfect temper,
but she understood him thoroughly, and he trusted her. He had need; he
knew--what is a rare thing in marriage now-a-days--that he had been his
wife's first love."

Agatha made no reply, and the conversation dropped.

Next to Mrs. Harper's letters, and preserved with almost equal care, was
another packet. It began with a child's scrawl--double-lined, upright
and stiff:

"My dear Father,

"Uncle Brian has ruled me this paper, and ruled Anne another. We are
all very merry at Weymouth. We don't want to come home, except to
see"--(here a word, apparently "_ponies_" had been carefully altered, by
a more delicate hand, into something like "_Papa_")--"Anne's love, and
everybody's, from your dutiful son,

"Frederick."

"'_Frederick?_'--I thought the letter was yours."

"No, if he had kept any it was sure to be my brothers. Frederick must
have them back."

"Let me tie them up," said Agatha stretching out her hand.

"No--no--are they so very precious? Why do you want to touch them?" said
he, sharply, drawing them out of her reach.

"Only that I might help you."

Mr. Harper regarded her a moment, and then put back the letters into
her lap. "Forgive me, I did not mean to be cross with you. But this task
confuses me."

He leaned his elbow on the cabinet, covering his eyes, and stood
thus for two or three minutes. Agatha remained silent--who could have
intruded on the emotion of a son at such a time? None but a wife who
could have stolen into his heart with a closer, dearer claim, and she,
alas! _she_ dared not. Weeks ago--when she believed herself wronged--it
would have been far easier. The higher he rose, the lower she sank,
weighed down by the bitter humility that always comes with fervent love.
She watched him--her heart throbbing, bursting, yearning to cast itself
at his feet--yet she dared not.

"Now let us l