"Will it be very different then from what it is now? A father's letters! a blank piece of paper! What harm would there be in looking at them?"
"My mother would know it if I took them away. It might excite and injure her."
"Put another envelope in the place of this one, with a piece of paper folded up in it."
"It would be a trick."
"I know it; but if Craik Mansell can be saved even by a trick, I should think you would be willing to venture on one."
"Craik Mansell? What has he got to do with the papers under my mother's pillow?"
"I cannot say that he has any thing to do with them; but if he has—if, for instance, that envelope should contain, not a piece of blank paper, or even the letters of your father, but such a document, say, as a certificate of marriage——"
"A certificate of marriage?"
"Yes, between Mrs. Clemmens and Mr. Orcutt, it would not take much perspicacity to prophesy an acquittal for Craik Mansell."
"Mary Ann the wife of Mr. Orcutt! Oh, that is impossible!" exclaimed the agitated spinster. But even while making this determined statement, she turned a look full of curiosity and excitement toward the door which separated them from her mother's apartment.