"Oh! if you please, I did manage to save something the last thing when the boat was at the window, and if you please, sir, all the bundles is lost, but I saved you a papercutter, and a letter Horse Guards, and here they are, sir."
The grateful little creature drew the square letter and paper-cutter from her bosom, and held them out to Mr. Tinman.
It was a letter of the imposing size, with THE HORSE GUARDS very distinctly inscribed on it in Tinman's best round hand, to strike his vindictive spirit as positively intended for transmission, and give him sight of his power to wound if it pleased him; as it might.
"What!" cried he, not clearly comprehending how much her devotion had accomplished for him.
"A letter to the Horse Guards!" cried Van Diemen.
"Here, give it me," said little Jane's master, and grasped it nervously.
"What's in that letter?" Van Diemen asked. "Let me look at that letter.
Don't tell me it's private correspondence."
"My dear Philip, dear friend, kind thanks; it's not a letter," said
Tinman.
"Not a letter! why, I read the address, 'Horse Guards.' I read it as it passed into your hands. Now, my man, one look at that letter, or take the consequences."
"Kind thanks for your assistance, dear Philip, indeed! Oh! this? Oh! it's nothing." He tore it in halves.