loor. If it were in any sense
expiatory, it had proven a success, for the palmetto clearing did not
haunt the Colonel as it had done on the day of the lawn-party. It was a
long time since he had heard from there, and he was beginning to wonder
if anything had happened, when Peter brought him an odd-looking letter,
directed wrong side up, written with a pencil, and having about it a
faint perfume of very bad tobacco. It was addressed to "Mr. Kurnal
Krompton, Troutberg, Mass." The writer evidently did not know of the
recent change of name, and the letter had been long on the way, but had
reached its destination at last, and was soiled and worn, and very
second-class in its appearance, Peter decided, as he took it from the
office and studied it carefully. No such missive had, to his knowledge,
ever before found its way into the aristocratic precincts of Crompton
Place. If it had he had not seen it, and he wondered who could have sent
this one. He found his master taking his breakfast, and, holding the
letter between his thumb and fingers, as if there were contamination in
its touch, he handed it to him.

"Fairly turned speckled when he looked at it," Peter thought, as he left
the room. "Wish I had seen where it was mailed."

An hour later, Jane, the housemaid, came to him and said, "The Colonel
wants you."

Peter found him in his bedroom, packing a satchel with a shaking hand
and a face more speckled than it had been when he read the letter.

"Peter," he said, "fold up these shirts for me, and put in some collars
and socks. I am going on a little trip, and may be gone two weeks, maybe
more. Hold your tongue."

When he wished Peter to be particularly reticent, he told him to hold
his tongue. Peter understood, and held it, and finished packing the
satchel, ordered the carriage for the eleven o'clock train, and saw his
master off, without knowing where he was going, except that his ticket
was for New York.

"That smelly letter has something to do with it, of course," he said. "I
wish I knew where it was from."

He was arranging the papers on the library table, when he stopped
suddenly with an exclamation of surprise, for there, under his hand, lay
the smelly letter, which the Colonel had forgotten to put away.

"Phew! I thought I got a whiff of something bad," he said, and read
again the superscription, with a growing contempt for the writer.
"Nobody will know if I read it, and I shall hold my tongue, as usual,"
he