Cora hung her head. "I peeked," she confessed.
"How many of the letters did you peek at?"
"All of 'em. An', oh, mother, it wasn't any harm, 'cause they're fearful old. Eighteen-hundred and forty-four, they have written on 'em. An' the one who wrote 'em, her name was Idea Stryker. She must be dead an' buried long ago, mustn't she, mother? I guess p'raps she died because her beau, he didn't answer her letters, or come to meet her 'down Cherry Lane' like she begged him to. She felt simply terrible about it. She liked him a whole lot, but he got mad at her, or something, and wouldn't answer her letters, or meet her, or anything. When I get to be a grown-up young lady, I'd like to write such elegant love-letters to somebody."
"He'd prob'ly go back on you, if you did. You see what happened to this poor lady, an' hist'ry repeats itself, like Mrs. Peckett. But what I wanta tell you, Cora, is this: You done a wrong thing. You had no business snoopin' into what wasn't your concern. Never you do so, no more."
Cora's voice sank. "I didn't know 'twas wrong, mother."
"Did you know 'twas right?" Martha demanded. "A good way to do, when you don't know a thing's wrong, is, stop a minute, an' make sure it's right. See you folla that rule after this. Meanwhile, doncher let a hint out o' you, to Ann Upton, or anybody else, about these letters. D'you hear?"
"Why?" asked Cora inquisitively.
Martha cast about for a reason potent enough to silence the childish, chattering tongue.
"You don't want to be disgraced, do you? Havin' folks know you pried into things wasn't meant for you? Such scandals is sure to leak out, if you whisper'm broadcast. If Mrs. Peckett oncet got a wind of it, you'd never hear the last."
As a matter of fact, Mrs. Slawson's mind was concerned much less with Cora's reputation, just at that moment, than with the letters she had obliged that reluctant young lady to hand over. Now they were in her own possession what should she do with them? To whom, by, rights, did they belong?