“Dear Charles,—
“When we last met under the magnolia, you asked me a question. I told you I would answer it in writing. I now keep my promise, and you will find the answer underneath my own very imperfect image, which I herewith send in closed. Papa has finally fixed the day of our departure from the old home. On Tuesday next we are to set out in search of a new one. Will it ever be as dear as that we are leaving behind? The answer will depend upon—need I say whom? After reading what I have written upon the carte, surely you can guess. There, I have confessed all—all woman can, could, or should. In six little words I have made over to you my heart. Accept them as its surrender!
“And now, Charles, to speak of things prosaic, as in this hard world we are too oft constrained to do. On Tuesday morning—at a very early hour, I believe—a boat will leave Natchez, bound up the Red River. Upon it we travel, as far as Natchitoches. There to remain for some time, while papa is completing preparations for our farther transport into Texas, I am not certain what part of the ‘Lone Star’ State he will select for our future home. He speaks of a place upon some branch of the Colorado River, said to be a beautiful country; which, you, having been out there, will know all about. In any case, we are to remain for a time, a month or more, in Nachitoches; and there, Carlos mio, I need not tell you, there is a post-office for receiving letters, as also for delivering them. Mind, I say for delivering them! Before we leave for the far frontier, where there may be neither post-office nor post, I shall write you full particulars about our intended ‘location’—with directions how to reach it. Need I be very minute? Or can I promise myself, that your wonderful skill as a ‘tracker,’ of which we’ve heard, will enable you to discover it? They say Love is blind. I hope, yours will not be so: else you may fail in finding the way to your sweetheart in the wilderness.
“How I go on talking, or rather writing, things I intended to say to you at our next meeting tinder the magnolia—our magnolia! Sad thought this, tagged to a pleasant expectation: for it must be our last interview under the dear old tree. Our last anywhere, until we come together again in Texas—perhaps on some prairie where there are no trees. Well; we shall then meet, I hope, never more to part; and in the open daylight, with no need either of night, or tree-shadows to conceal us. I’m sure father, humbled as he now is, will no longer object. Dear Charles, I don’t think he would have done so at any time, but for his reverses. They made him think of—never mind what. I shall tell you all under the magnolia.
“And now, master mine—this makes you so—be punctual! Monday night, and ten o’clock—the old hour. Remember that the morning after? I shall be gone—long before the wild-wood songsters are singing their ‘reveillé’ to awake you. Jule will drop this into our tree post-office this evening—Saturday. As you’ve told me you go there every day, you’ll be sure of getting it in time; and once more I may listen to your flattery, as when you quoted the words of the old song, making me promise to come, saying you would ‘show the night flowers their queen.’
“Ah! Charles, how easy to keep that promise! How sweet the flattery was, is, and ever will be, to yours,—
“Helen Armstrong.”
“And that letter was found on Dick Darke?” questions a voice, as soon as the reading has come to an end.
“It war dropped by him,” answers Woodley; “and tharfor ye may say it war found on him.”
“You’re sure of that, Simeon Woodley?”