An Unexpected Missive
"A letter for you, Mother," Alden tossed a violet-scented envelope into the old lady's lap as he spoke, and stood there, waiting.
"For me!" she exclaimed. Letters for either of them were infrequent. She took it up curiously, scrutinised the address, sniffed at the fragrance the missive carried, noted the postmark, which was that of the town near by, and studied the waxen purple seal, stamped with indistinguishable initials.
"I haven't the faintest idea whom it's from," she said, helplessly.
"Why not open it and see?" he suggested, with kindly sarcasm. His assumed carelessness scarcely veiled his own interest in it.
"You always were a bright boy, Alden," she laughed. Another woman might have torn it open rudely, but Madame searched through her old mahogany desk until she found a tarnished silver letter-opener, thus according due courtesy to her unknown correspondent.
Having opened it, she discovered that she could not read the handwriting, which was angular and involved beyond the power of words to indicate.
A Woman's Writing
"Here," she said. "Your eyes are better than mine."
Alden took it readily. "My eyes may be good," he observed, after a long pause, "but my detective powers are not. The m's and n's are all alike, and so are most of the other letters. She's an economical person--she makes the same hieroglyphic do duty for both a g and a y."
"It's from a woman, then?"
"Certainly. Did you ever know a man to sprawl a note all over two sheets of paper, with nothing to distinguish the end from the beginning? In the nature of things, you'd expect her to commence at the top of a sheet, and, in a careless moment, she may have done so. Let me see--yes, here it is: 'My dear Mrs. Marsh.'"
"Go on, please," begged Madame, after a silence. "It was just beginning to be interesting."
"'During my mother's last illness,'" Alden read, with difficulty, "'she told me that if I were ever in trouble, I should go to you--that you would stand in her place to me. I write to ask if I may come, for I can no longer see the path ahead of me, and much less do I know the way in which I should go.
A Schoolmate's Daughter
"'You surely remember her. She was Louise Lane before her marriage to my father, Edward Archer.
"'Please send me a line or two, telling me I may come, if only for a day. Believe me, no woman ever needed a friendly hand to guide her more than "'Yours unhappily, "'EDITH ARCHER LEE.'"