“Thank you. I would like to keep something of your mother's. And she was indeed so happy in her marriage?”
“Very happy, Anne Valery says. My father's was not a perfect temper, but she understood him thoroughly, and he trusted her. He had need; he knew—what is a rare thing in marriage now-a-days—that he had been his wife's first love.”
Agatha made no reply, and the conversation dropped.
Next to Mrs. Harper's letters, and preserved with almost equal care, was another packet. It began with a child's scrawl—double-lined, upright and stiff:
“My dear Father,
“Uncle Brian has ruled me this paper, and ruled Anne another. We are all very merry at Weymouth. We don't want to come home, except to see”—(here a word, apparently “ponies” had been carefully altered, by a more delicate hand, into something like “Papa”)—“Anne's love, and everybody's, from your dutiful son,
“Frederick.”
“'Frederick?'—I thought the letter was yours.”
“No, if he had kept any it was sure to be my brothers. Frederick must have them back.”
“Let me tie them up,” said Agatha stretching out her hand.