followed me into the house instead of going to the barn. I ran ahead
calling: "Shelley! Where is Shelley?"

"What in this world has happened, child?" asked mother, catching my arm.

"Her letter has come! Her Paget letter! The one you looked for until
you gave up. It's come at last! Oh, where is she?"

"Be calmer, child, you'll frighten her," said mother.

May snatched the letter from my fingers and began to read all that was
on it aloud. I burst out crying.

"Make her give that back!" I sobbed to father. "It's mine! I found
it. Father, make her let me take it!"

"Give it to her!" said father. "I rather feel that it is her right to
deliver it."

May passed it back, but she looked so disappointed, that by how she
felt I knew how much I wanted to take it myself; so I reached my hand
to her and said: "You can come along! We'll both take it! Oh where
is she?"

"She went down in the orchard," said mother. "I think probably she's
gone back where she was the other day."

Gee, but we ran! And there she was! As we came up, she heard us and
turned.

"Shelley!" I cried. "Here's your letter! Everything is all right!
He's coming, Shelley! Look quick, and see when! Mother will want to
begin baking right away!"

Shelley looked at me, and said coolly: "Paddy Ryan! What's the
matter?"

"Your letter!" I cried, shoving it right against her hands. "Your
letter from Robert! From the Paget man, you know! I told you he was
coming! Hurry, and see when!"

She took it, and sat there staring at it, so much like father, that it
made me think of him, so I saw that she was going to have to come
around to it as we did, and that one couldn't hurry her. She just had
to take her time to sense it.

"Shall I open it for you?" I asked, merely to make her see that it was
time she was doing it herself.

Blest if she didn't reach it toward me!--sort of woodenlike. I stuck
my finger under the flap, gave it a rip across and emptied what was
inside into her lap. Bet there were six or seven letters in queer
yellow envelopes I never before had seen any like, and on them was the
name, Robert Paget, while in one corner it said, "Returned Dead
Letter"; also there was a loose folded white sheet. She sat staring at
the heap, touching one, another, and repeating "Robert Paget?" as she
picked each up in turn.

"What do you suppose it means?" she asked May. May examined them.

"You must read the loose sheet," she advis