The name at the bottom was signed in full, but it had evidently been written in a violent hurry with a leaky fountain-pen, then inadvertently smeared so badly that it was undecipherable.
Nell sat looking at it so long that she forgot about the other things, until Mrs. Nichols came back from the depot.
“Oh, what a pretty colour! and it is good merino, too, and the flannel is the best quality—it cost half a dollar a yard, if it did a cent, I guess. Oh, my dear, do tell me the name of the gentleman that sent it!” cried Mrs. Nichols, who was walking round the parcel in an ecstasy of admiration.
“You can see the letter if you like,” replied Nell, quietly; but her colour was coming and going, and it was easy to see that she was having hard work to maintain her self-control.
Mrs. Nichols stood by the table and read the letter through in silence, until she came to the signature, then she said with something like irritation in her tone—
“What is the name?”
“Can’t you read it?” asked Nell.
“It is so horribly smudged. Just like a man to stuff a letter into an envelope without stopping to blot it. The first name looks like Dick, and—but no, it can’t surely be Brunsen!” cried Mrs. Nichols, in a shocked tone.
“I am afraid it is,” sighed Nell.
“And the money, did you find that?” demanded Mrs. Nichols, sharply, referring again to the letter, which she still held in her hand.