e early this morning."

"But how do you know that it was your letter, then?" I asked.

"Well! Of course, I don't really know, but--but it should have been for
me, of course. They gave me the other woman's address. She lives in
Little Ferry in New Jersey, and I'm going there at once."

CHAPTER XII

GORDON BECOMES ENGAGED

Frances and I started away on the trip, immediately, for there was not a
moment to lose. That letter must at once be retrieved. The dreadful
woman had evidently seized upon one never meant for her, and must be
bearded in her den. From her the missive must be rescued, by force of
arms if necessary; it must be snatched from the burning, seized and
brought back, even at the cost of bloodshed.

This, it may be, is but the vague impression I gathered from the profuse
and simultaneous conversation of my two dear friends. When I humbly
suggested again that the Jersey person might perhaps have a perfect
equity in the document, they looked at me with the pitying condescension
accorded the feebleminded and the very young by the gentler sex. Also, I
proposed to hie me to Little Ferry alone, interview the termagant in
question and make her disgorge, in case she was illegally detaining
words meant for another.

This was once more met by a look from Frieda to Frances, and vice-versa,
which was then turned upon me and made me feel like an insignificant
and, I hope, a harmless microbe.

"My dear Dave," said Frieda, tolerantly, "you are not Madame Paul
Dupont. Why should that abominable woman give up the letter to you?"

"When she sees me and Baby," declared Frances, "she will not have the
heart to refuse."

The upshot of it was that we departed, leaving Frieda behind. For the
first time in his life little Paul was shot through a tunnel, emerged in
Jersey, none the worse for his experience, and was taken aboard a train.
Soon afterwards we were observing the great meadows and the Hackensack
River, a vacillating, sluggish stream, running either up or down, at the
behest of a tide that always possesses plenty of leisure, through banks
winding in a great valley of cat-tails and reeds among which, in the
summertime, legions of grackles and redwings appear to find a plenteous
living. But at this time the stream was more than usually turbid, filled
with aimlessly floating cakes of ice, and the green of fairer weather
had given place to a drab hue of discouraged weeds awaiting better
days. While waiting at t