the "salt of the earth"
are drinking the waters at Saratoga, gazing at the trembling rapids of
Niagara, or disporting themselves on the beach at Long Branch. The
workers of the earth still burrow in their city holes, through heat, and
dust, and din, and glare, and among them Richard Gilbert.

He sits alone this stifling August afternoon, in his down-town office.
The green shades that do their best to keep out the white blinding glare
and fail, are closed. The windows stand wide, but no grateful breeze
steals in. He sits at his desk in a loose linen coat, multitudinous
documents labelled, scattered, and tied up before him. But it is a
document that does not look legal, that is absorbing his attention. It
is a letter, and the envelope, lying beside him on the floor, bears the
French postmark. He sits and re-reads with a very grave and thoughtful
face. "It is queer," he is thinking, "uncommonly queer. She must be an
adventuress, and a clever one. Of course she has wheedled him into
making a new will, and the lion's share will go to herself. Hum! I
wonder what Thorndyke will say. Come in."

He pushes the paper away, and answers a discreet tap at the door.

"Lady and gentleman to see you, sir," announces a clerk and the lady and
gentleman enter.

"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 Chr