"It isn't anybody," she replied, "but it was Mistress Mary Burton of Burton Hall. I'm one of her descendants, an' these are some letters she had with her in this funny old carved box when she disappeared with her lover. They fled to Holland and were married there, the story goes, an' one o' their children came over in the early days o' New England. He brought the letters an' the picture with him."
"Well, now! I want to know!" exclaimed Droop, in great admiration. "'Twouldn't be perlite, I s'pose, to ask to hear some o' them letters?"
"Would you like to hear some of them?" Phœbe asked.
"I would fer a fact," he replied.
"Well, bring your chair over here and I'll read you one," she said.
Droop seated himself near the two sisters and Phœbe unfolded a large and rather rough sheet of paper, yellow with age, on which Droop perceived a bold scrawl in a faded ink.
"This seems to have been from Mary Burton's father," Phœbe said. "I don't think he can have been a very nice man. This is what he says:
"'Dear Poll'—horrid nickname, isn't it?"
"Seems so to me," said Droop.
"'Dear Poll—I'm starting behind the grays for London, on my way, as you know ere this, to be knighted by her Majesty. I send this ahead by Gregory on Bess—she being fast enow for my purpose—which is to get thee straight out of the grip of that'——"