One bitterly cold night we were sitting around a blazing coal fire in the library. It was very late. Aunt Sarah was asleep in her chair; my uncle was reading. Suddenly the door opened and Robert came in, bringing a letter on his little silver tray: it was past eleven o'clock; the evening mail had been brought in long before.
"Why, what is that, Robert?" said Uncle Jo, starting up a little alarmed.
"One of them old letters, sir," replied Robert; "I just got it on the cellar stairs, sir."
My uncle took the letter hastily. Robert still stood as if he had more to say; and his honest, blank face looked stupefied with perplexity.
"If you please, sir," he began, "it's the queerest thing ever I saw. That letter's been put on them stairs, sir, within the last five minutes."
"Why, Robert, what do you mean?" said my uncle, thoroughly excited.
"Oh dear," groaned Aunt Sarah, creeping out of her nap and chair, "if you are going into another catechism about those old letters, I am going to bed;" and she left the room, not staying long enough to understand that this was a new mystery, and not a vain rediscussing of the old one.
It seemed that Robert had been down cellar to see that the furnace fire was in order for the night. As soon as he reached the top of the stairs, in coming up, he remembered that he had not turned the outside damper properly, and went back to do it.
"I wasn't gone three minutes, sir, and when I came back there lay the letter, right side up, square in the middle of the stairs; and I'd take my Bible oath, sir, as 'twan't there when I went down."
"Who was in the hall when you went down, Robert?" said my uncle sternly.