“It’s from Californy again,” she muttered. “There’s somethin’ strange in so many letters comin’ to that gal from Californy.” Then she turned to Jessie, and fixing, if she could fix, those cross-eyes on her, she said, in a whisper, a harsh, fierce whisper: “If you just breathe one whisper to a living soul about this letter a-comin’ here, I’ll pull the very ears off your frowsy head. I’m afeared some one is a-tryin’ to delude that sweet young cretur away, and I’m not a-goin’ to sit still and see it. No, it’s my Christian duty to take care of her, and I’m goin’ to do it. I’ll see who it is a-writin’ to her, and what he says.”
“Why, sure, ma’am, you wouldn’t keep Miss Hattie’s own letter from her?” asked Jessie, with unusual boldness.
“Yes, for her own good, I would. And now, mind you, don’t speak it to a living soul. If you do, I’ll whip you till you can’t squeal!”
Miss Scrimp was one who never forgot such a promise, as poor Jessie knew to her sorrow. So she went back up stairs to her work, and Miss Scrimp darted into her own room with that letter.
She sat down near the dingy window, and looked at it, back and front, and examined it in every way to see if it was not possible to open it without breaking the seal.
But this could not be done. The seal must be broken, or the end of the envelope cut. Miss Scrimp hesitated before acting on either of these ideas. She had heard of a penalty attached to the crime of opening another person’s letter.
She didn’t care a pin for the crime, but she did care for the penalty. She was like the penitent thief. He was sorry to be caught stealing.
“I must know what is in this letter!” she muttered. “I can’t understand that girl. And she will never tell me anything. There’s a mystery about her, and for the life of me I can’t get at the bottom of it. But I will—I will, if I die for it. Jess will never dare tell her about this letter. I’d skin her alive if she did. I’ll open it, and know who she has got in Californy, and what he wants.”
With a desperate twitch she ran her dirty thumb-nail under the crease of the envelope, near the end of the letter, tore it open, and took out a half sheet of note-paper.
It had neither date nor place of dating at its head. The letter was composed of but two lines. She read them over aloud: