“Where are these copies?” broke in Mr. Gryce, subduing his voice to its most professional tone. “And where are her attempts at writing? I’d like to see some of them. Can’t you get them for us?”
“I don’t know, sir. I always made it a point to destroy them as soon as they had answered their purpose. I didn’t like to have such things lying around. But I will go see.”
“Do,” said he; “and I will go with you. I want to take a look at things up-stairs, any way.” And, heedless of his rheumatic feet, he rose and prepared to accompany her.
“This is getting very intense,” I whispered, as he passed me.
The smile he gave me in reply would have made the fortune of a Thespian Mephistopheles.
Of the ten minutes of suspense which I endured in their absence, I say nothing. At the end of that time they returned with their hands full of paper boxes, which they flung down on the table.
“The writing-paper of the household,” observed Mr. Gryce; “every scrap and half-sheet which could be found. But, before you examine it, look at this.” And he held out a sheet of bluish foolscap, on which were written some dozen imitations of that time-worn copy, “BE GOOD AND YOU WILL BE HAPPY”; with an occasional “Beauty soon fades,” and “Evil communications corrupt good manners.”
“What do you think of that?”
“Very neat and very legible.”
“That is Hannah’s latest. The only specimens of her writing to be found. Not much like some scrawls we have seen, eh?”