But Peter, the post-office boy, looked from one to the other, with his black eyes growing bigger and bigger, as he felt with his hand in the empty mail-bag and exclaimed:
"I'clar's to de law der was a letter for some uns. Miss Emmer, 'cause I see de pos'marser put it in de bag wid his own hands, which it were a letter wid a black edge all 'round de outside of it, and a dob o' black tar, or somethink, onto the middle o' the back of it."
As the boy spoke, the Rev. Dr. Jones began again to turn over the magazines and newspapers until he found the letter, which had slipped between the covers of the Edinboro' Review.
"It is for you, my dear," he said, as he passed the missive across the table to Miss Cavendish.
"I wonder from whom it comes? The handwriting is quite unfamiliar to me. And the postmark is New York, where I have no correspondents whatever," said Emma, in surprise, as she broke the black seal.
"Oh, maybe it's a circular from some merchant who has heard of the great Alleghany heiress," suggested Electra.
"You will permit me?" said Emma, glancing at her companions as she unfolded her letter.
And then, as one and another nodded and smiled and returned to their magazines and papers. Emma Cavendish glanced at the signature of her strange letter, started with surprise, gazed at it a second time more attentively, and then turned hurriedly and began to read it.
And as she read her face paled and flushed, and she glanced from time to time at the faces of her companions; but they were all engaged with pamphlets and papers, except Mrs. Grey, whom Emma perceived to be furtively watching her.
The strange letter was written in rather a wild and rambling style of composition, as if the writer were a little brain sick. It ran as follows: