He felt his face grow very red and hot as he straightened it out upon his knees, his heart fluttering with the thought of the possibility that it might have been some little liking for the writer that had prevented its immediate destruction.
There were some words in pencil along the margin; he held it up to the light and slowly deciphered them.
He was not much accustomed to reading writing and this had become slightly blurred: but he made it out clearly at last; a jesting remark about his mistakes in spelling and grammar, which were many and glaring.
"I wouldn't ha' believed it of her!" he exclaimed, crimsoning with anger and shame as he flung the torn and crumpled sheet into the fire of his forge, the dolls after it.
He caught up his hammer and fell to work again, muttering to himself, "It's her writin'; there can't be no mistake; fur it's just like what she writ me afore. And I wouldn't a' believed it of her, I wouldn't; I thought she'd a kind heart and would make allowance fur them that hasn't had the same chance as her."
He had not been wrong in his estimate of Mildred. She would never have wounded his feelings intentionally. She had a habit of writing her thoughts on the margin of what she was reading, and the words had been carelessly traced there with no expectation that they would ever be seen by any eye but her own. Nor would they but for the mischievous meddling of the children.
She set no value upon the letter; did not miss it till months afterwards, and then supposed she had destroyed it, though she could not distinctly remember having done so.
In the meantime Gotobed kept his own counsel, concealing his hurt as well as he could and trying not to hate the hand that had inflicted it.