st something projecting from the floor, and at
the same moment I heard distinctly, and as it were in my very ear,
a low whisper, "Massa Bold, Massa Bold!"

"Who is there?" I whispered in return, and, clutching the thing my
hand had touched, I felt it move.

I tightened my grasp upon it; it was round, and as I discovered by
laying my other hand upon its top, hollow. Struck by a sudden
thought I bent my face down, and whispered again into the hole,
"Who is there?" afterwards turning my ear upon it.

"Massa Bold, lill Missy sends a letter."

The words came clearly up the tube.

"Me poke it up," said the voice again.

I withdrew my ear, and waited in a tense breathlessness of
amazement. Then I heard a slight rustling, and placing my hand on
the tube, I felt a small piece of paper thrust against it. Grasping
this, all my frame thrilling with excitement, I whispered again:

"Who are you?"

"Me Uncle Moses," said the voice. "Good night, sah; come again
tomorrow."

And then all was silent.

Picture if you can my state of mind as I crept back into my bed and
lay down again, the precious note in my hand. I was trembling with
happiness: Lucy knew of my presence, and had written to me. And yet
I was doomed to lie in a tantalizing impatience until the dawn
should give me leave to read her message. I had no more sleep that
night, wonderment, conjecture, pleasure, hope, setting up a whirl
in my brain.

As soon as there was the faintest tremor in the darkness I sat up
and, unfolding the paper, sought vainly to decipher it. Never had
time seemed so long to me as I waited for the oncoming of the
beneficent light of day. And at last, lifting the paper almost to
my eyes, I was able to make out the words.

'Twas in French, and I blessed the chance which enabled me to
understand it, and the woman's wit that had prompted Lucy to choose
this disguise. She said she had learned of what had happened
through the gossip of the servants; the man who had heard my name
in the rest house had mentioned it. She told me that she was
virtually a prisoner. She knew not what Vetch intended (she did not
name him, but wrote of him as cet homme mechant), but she was kept
under strict surveillance; her movements were dogged; and though
she had three times endeavored to make her escape along with the
old nurse who had accompanied her from England, she had always been
prevented, and those who had assisted her had been terribly
punished. Uncle Mos