d held it up as though trying to read it.
Quincy glanced towards her.

"Mr. Sawyer, can you keep a secret?" asked Alice.

"I have a big one on my mind now," replied Quincy, "that I would like to
confide to some one."

"Why don't you?" asked Alice.

"As soon as I can find a person whom I think can fully sympathize with
me I shall do so, but for the present I must bear my burden in silence,"
said he.

"I hope you Will not have to wait long before finding that sympathetic
friend," remarked Alice.

"I hope so, too," he replied. "But I have not answered your question,
Miss Pettengill. If I can serve you by storing a secret with you, it
shall be safe with me."

"Will you promise not to speak of it, not even to me?" she asked.

"If you wish it I will promise," he answered.

"Then please read to me what is written on that envelope."

Quincy looked at the envelope. "It is written in an old-fashioned,
cramped hand," he said, "and the writing is 'confided to Miss Alice
Pettengill, and to be destroyed without being read by her within
twenty-four hours after my death. Hepsibeth Putnam.'"

"Thank you," said Alice simply, and she replaced the envelope in her
muff.

Like a flash of lightning the thought came to Quincy that the letter to
be destroyed had some connection with the strange story so recently told
him by Lindy. He must take some action in the matter before it was too
late. Turning to Alice he said, "Miss Pettengill, if I make a strange
request of you, which you can easily grant, will you do it, and not ask
me for any explanation until after you have complied?"

"You have worded your inquiry so carefully, Mr. Sawyer, that I am a
little afraid you, you being a lawyer, but as you have so graciously
consented to keep a secret with me, I will trust you and will promise to
comply with your request."

"All I ask is," said Quincy, "that before you destroy that letter, you
will let me read to you once more what is written upon the envelope."

"Why, certainly," said Alice, "how could I refuse so harmless a request
as that?"

"I am greatly obliged for your kindness," said Quincy to her; but he
thought to himself, "I will find out what is in that envelope, if there
is any honorable way of doing so."

Hiram came over to see Mandy that evening, and Mrs. Crowley, who was in
the best of spirits, sang several old-time Irish songs to them, Hiram
and Mandy joining in the choruses. They were roasting big red apples on
the