f office in Boston, which his father is going to
fix up for him. That's how it is Rutherford has been living with us for
some months.

"Well, a good while ago, I wrote you a letter, begging you to come and
visit me; father said I might do so. You didn't accept the invitation. I
wrote you again and got no answer to it; I was frightened, and thought
maybe you were ill, and wrote once more, but there was no answer to it. I
would have sent a letter to Cousin Jane to find out about you, but she
was in Europe. After a while I sent a fourth letter, very long, and full
of things which I wouldn't have anyone else know for the world. I
sent----"

"Who by?"

"Rutherford took it and several other letters, and placed them in the
mail-box at father's office, so they were sure to go. But there was no
answer to the last, and then I gave up. I felt awful bad; but I was
nearly wild when Rutherford came to me one day and said he had something
which he thought he ought to tell me. When he said it was about you, I
was dreadfully excited. He told me that he had made the acquaintance of a
young man from Damietta, who was a close friend of yours. That young
person, whose name Rutherford would not give, said that you showed all my
letters to him and several others, and made fun of them. I wouldn't have
believed it if he hadn't proved what he said?"

"How did he prove it?"

"By repeating what I had written; he gave me half of what was in that
last letter, which he said was repeated to him by the person you told. He
had them so exactly that my face burned like fire, and I was never so
angry in all my life. I knew you must have done what Rutherford said, for
how could he know what I had written you?"

"He knew it by opening your letter, reading the contents, and then
destroying it. That letter, Dolly, I never saw, nor did I see the three
which preceded it. I also sent you three letters, of which I never
heard."

Now that the way was opened, full explanations quickly followed. There
could be no earthly doubt that the last three letters sent by Ben
Mayberry to Dolly Willard had been intercepted by Rutherford Richmond,
who had not hesitated to do the same with those sent by Dolly, though
most probably he had simply destroyed the three, and read only the last.

"You risked your life to save mine and that of my mother," she said in a
tremulous voice, "and it was an awful thing for you to believe I could
ever fail to think more of you than of