boy, Alden," she laughed. Another woman might
have torn it open rudely, but Madame searched through her old mahogany
desk until she found a tarnished silver letter-opener, thus according
due courtesy to her unknown correspondent.

Having opened it, she discovered that she could not read the
handwriting, which was angular and involved beyond the power of words to
indicate.

[Sidenote: A Woman's Writing]

"Here," she said. "Your eyes are better than mine."

Alden took it readily. "My eyes may be good," he observed, after a long
pause, "but my detective powers are not. The _m's_ and _n's_ are all
alike, and so are most of the other letters. She's an economical
person--she makes the same hieroglyphic do duty for both a _g_ and a
_y_."

"It's from a woman, then?"

"Certainly. Did you ever know a man to sprawl a note all over two sheets
of paper, with nothing to distinguish the end from the beginning? In the
nature of things, you'd expect her to commence at the top of a sheet,
and, in a careless moment, she may have done so. Let me see--yes, here
it is: 'My dear Mrs. Marsh.'"

"Go on, please," begged Madame, after a silence. "It was just beginning
to be interesting."

"'During my mother's last illness,'" Alden read, with difficulty, "'she
told me that if I were ever in trouble, I should go to you--that you
would stand in her place to me. I write to ask if I may come, for I can
no longer see the path ahead of me, and much less do I know the way in
which I should go.

[Sidenote: A Schoolmate's Daughter]

"'You surely remember her. She was Louise Lane before her marriage to my
father, Edward Archer.

"'Please send me a line or two, telling me I may come, if only for a
day. Believe me, no woman ever needed a friendly hand to guide her more
than

"'Yours unhappily,

"'EDITH ARCHER LEE.'"

"Louise Lane," murmured Madame, reminiscently. "My old schoolmate! I
didn't even know that she had a daughter, or that she was dead. How
strangely we lose track of one another in this world!"

"Yes?" said Alden, encouragingly.

"Louise was a beautiful girl," continued Madame, half to herself. "She
had big brown eyes, with long lashes, a thick, creamy skin that someway
reminded you of white rose-petals, and the most glorious red hair you
ever saw. She married an actor, and I heard indirectly that she had gone
on the stage, then I lost her entirely."

"Yes?" said Alden, again.

"