"Hope we don't disturb you, squire," says the gentleman, and Mr. Gilbert rises suddenly to his feet. "Me and Hetty, we thought as how it would keinder look bad to go back without droppin' in. Hot day, squire—now ain't it?"
"My dear Miss Kent—my dear Uncle Reuben, this is an unlooked-for pleasure. You in the city, and in the blazing month of August. What tempted you?"
"Well, now, blamed if I know. Only Hetty here, she's bin sorter ailin' lately, and old Dr. Perkins, he said a change would do her a heap of good, and Hetty, she'd never seen New York, and so—that's about it. Squire! we've had a letter."
He says it abruptly, staring very hard straight before him. Aunt Hetty fidgets in her chair, and Richard Gilbert's pale, worn face grows perhaps a shade paler.
"A letter," he repeats; "from her?"
"From her. Two letters, if it comes to that. One from this here town last Christmas—t'other from foreign parts a week ago. I want to show 'em to you. Here's number one."
He takes a letter in an envelope from his pocket, and hands it to the lawyer. It seems almost a lifetime ago, but the thrill that goes through Richard Gilbert at sight of that writing still!
"Last Christmas," he says glancing at the postmark, a shade of reproach in his tone. "And you never told me!"
"I never told you, squire. It ain't a pleasant sort of thing to talk about, least of all to you. She doesn't deserve a thought from you, Mr. Gilbert—"
The lawyer stopped him with a gesture.