servatory; but he was used to coming in and out of the house so much
that his joining me in the garden was no more of an invasion than if he
had been one of the family. He said father had told him he was to be
out of town, and he had come around to see how the household was
getting on. We sat there very comfortably in the warm sun, aimlessly
talking, hearing the sweet notes of church bells. I was just about to
resume my book when Lee put his head out of the conservatory door.

"Some one to see you, Miss Ellie," he announced, and disappeared
abruptly before I could ask who.

I went in, fearing it would prove to be some girl whom I did not know
well, who had called out of mere curiosity. I was surprised to find,
awaiting me in the hall, a person whom I did not know at all--whom I
had never even seen before. It was a half-grown shuffling Mexican,
with a blank and stupid face, looking as if he might be some one's
stable-boy. But as soon as he saw me, he produced from some pocket and
presented to me with remarkable swiftness and dexterity, a small
immaculate white note. It was addressed to me, and the writing was not
Estrella Mendez's small copper-plate script, but a larger, bolder, more
dashing hand, scarcely like a woman's.

"To the Senorita Elenora:" it began,--and I wondered whether it could
be from one of mother's old friends, for she had had several among the
great Spanish families of the north. "I am asking if you will honor me
with your presence for a short hour this morning," the letter ran. "It
is impossible that I come to you, for I am ill. But there is a very
great reason why I must see you. It is a matter touching justice. You
will not fail." It was signed "Carlotta Valencia."

I read the signature twice over, and then the letter. No, my eyes were
not playing tricks. But still, could it be some practical joke? I put
the envelope to my face. Ah, it was she, it was the perfume of that
flower! She had really written; she had summoned me.

The very fact that she had communicated with me, this being who was not
as I was, whose life seemed as irrevocably separated from mine, as if
she inhabited another planet, was amazing. And as for those
expressions in her letter, "a very great matter," "touching justice," I
dared not think what I wanted to believe.

I carried the note out into the garden. "I don't know how to answer
this," I said, handing it to Mr. Dingley.

He read it, and whistled. "We