The letter was unfolded and spread out; and curiously enough, though not one of them could read, they could all tell it was Gerard's handwriting.
“And your father must be away,” cried Catherine. “Are ye not ashamed of yourselves? not one that can read your brother's letter.”
But although the words were to them what hieroglyphics are to us, there was something in the letter they could read. There is an art can speak without words; unfettered by the penman's limits, it can steal through the eye into the heart and brain, alike of the learned and unlearned; and it can cross a frontier or a sea, yet lose nothing. It is at the mercy of no translator; for it writes an universal language.
When, therefore, they saw this,