“My sleep was broken, my nerves wrecked; and I imagined and dreamed of all kinds of terrible calamities which we were powerless to escape. When my mother died, I was taken to an orphan asylum, which I hated from foundation to roof; and when old enough to earn my living was compelled to earn it by means of an occupation I despised.
“I mention these things as some little excuse for my warped disposition which made me so disagreeable to my fellow-creatures that I had not one real friend, and was so cruel to you that I wonder you lived. For that I implore your forgiveness.
“Jerusha.”
“Poor Jerusha looked upon this pen as a mascot,” remarked Hilda, taking it up to examine it after finishing the letter. “Oh, Aunt Merryman, how could I bear resentment toward her after reading this story of her life?”
“Yes, we should be patient with our fellow creatures. We cannot know the burdens that many of them are bearing. I have often wondered what trials poor old Archie has had to bring him to the condition he is in now, for he has evidently seen better days.”
“I have often said that Archie is my good genius. Besides saving my life, it seems that through him, guided by a kind Providence, I have found three beautiful homes, and now through him this package has been found.”
“Did you ever see anything so capable of keeping a secret as is this desk?” commented Mrs. Merryman. “Let us examine it more closely.”
“How simple when one understands it!” said Hilda, raising and lowering the lid. “The desk has a false bottom to which the lid is attached by hinges not placed at the end, but a short distance above it. Thus, when we put up the lid it closes the secret space, and when the desk is open—that is, the lid down and resting upon the open drawer beneath it—it is concealed.”
“It is the greatest curiosity in the shape of a desk that I have seen,” commented Mrs. Merryman. “Who would suspect a vacancy under what they suppose to be the floor of the desk, large enough to hold a larger package than yours? In truth, several of that thickness could be concealed there if laid side by side.”
“But the hiding place is easily seen if one knows that the secret lies in holding the lid in a horizontal position; but being always under it, and the entrance to the secret nook being partly filled in by the lower end of the lid, it is sure to elude detection.”