"Not at all. There are subjects, my dear, about which a young fellow can not surely talk to his mamma," insinuated the brother-in-law.
"She has written to him" cried the lady, behind the cambric.
"What, before he was ill? Nothing more likely."
"No, since;" the mourner with the batiste mask gasped out; "not before; that is, I don't think so—that is, I—"
"Only since; and you have—yes, I understand. I suppose when he was too ill to read his own correspondence, you took charge of it, did you?"
"I am the most unhappy mother in the world," cried out the unfortunate
Helen.
"The most unhappy mother in the world, because your son is a man and not a hermit! Have a care, my dear sister. If you have suppressed any letters to him, you may have done yourself a great injury; and, if I know any thing of Arthur's spirit, may cause a difference between him and you, which you'll rue all your life—a difference that's a dev'lish deal more important, my good madam, than the little—little —trumpery cause which originated it."
"There was only one letter," broke out Helen—"only a very little one—only a few words. Here it is—O—how can you, how can you speak so?"
When the good soul said only "a very little one," the major could not speak at all, so inclined was he to laugh, in spite of the agonies of the poor soul before him, and for whom he had a hearty pity and liking too. But each was looking at the matter with his or her peculiar eyes and view of morals, and the major's morals, as the reader knows, were not those of an ascetic.
"I recommend you," he gravely continued, "if you can, to seal it up —those letters ain't unfrequently sealed with wafers—and to put it among Pen's other letters, and let him have them when he calls for them. Or if we can't seal it, we mistook it for a bill."