stily, with a shade of embarrassment in his voice,
"it is only an old letter, but I thought there might be more from the same
person."

"Who was it?" said Aunt Sarah, languidly.

"I don't know; only the first name is signed," said he evasively; and the
placid lady asked no more. The children were busy with Fido, and breakfast
went on, but I watched my uncle's face. I had never seen it look just as
it looked then. What could that old yellow letter have been? My magnetic
sympathy with my uncle told me that he was deeply moved.

At dinner-time my uncle was late, and Aunt Sarah said, with a little less
than her usual dignity, "I never did see such a man as Mr. Norton, when he
takes a notion in his head. He's been all the morning rummaging in clouds
of dust in the garret, to find more of those old letters."

"Who wrote it, Auntie?" said I.

"Heaven knows," said she; "some woman or other, fifty years ago. He says
her name was Esther."

"Did you read it?" I asked tremblingly. Already I felt a shrinking sense
of regard for the unknown Esther.

Aunt Sarah looked at me with almost amused surprise. "Read it, child? no,
indeed! What do I care what that poor soul wrote half a century ago. But
your uncle's half out of his head about her, and he's had all the servants
up questioning them back and forth till they are nearly as mad as he is.
Cook says she has found several of them on the cellar stairs in the last
few weeks; but she saw they were so old she threw them into the fire, and
never once looked at them; and when she said that, your uncle just
groaned. I never did see such a man as he is when he gets a notion in his
head,"--she repeated, hopelessly.

My uncle came in flushed and tired. Nothing was said about the letters
till, just as dinner was over, he said suddenly:--

"Robert, if you find any more of these old papers anywhere, bring them to
me at once. And give orders to all the servants that no piece of old
paper with writing on it is to be destroyed without my seeing it."

"Yes, sir," said Robert, without changing a muscle of his face, but I saw
that he too was of Mrs. Norton's opinion as to his master's oddity when he
once got a notion in his head.

"Who was the lady, papa?" said little Agnes. "Did you know her?"

"My dear, the letter is as old as papa is himself," said he. "I think the
lady died when papa was a little baby."

"Then what makes you care so much, papa?" persisted Agnes.

"I can't tell you, li