ed stole bashfully up and
pushed a scrap of paper into his down-hanging hand.

"Hello, youngster!" cried the gentleman, sitting up. "What's this?"

The child's timidity banished at the first sound of the visitor's
voice. Mr. Sharp reading, with his spectacles on, and Mr. Sharp
speaking in that hail-fellow-well-met manner were two different
people. Besides that, Ned's shyness was not his strongest feature,
though it cropped out now and then to the astonishment of his family.
Also, he was fresh from the hands of Aunt Sally and his catechism
lesson, into which she had adroitly forced a hint of the conduct due
toward a "wise man, that can write printin'." Supposing it to be a
production of the little fellow's own, Mr. Sharp delayed the reading
of the crumpled epistle he had received and continued his talk with
its bearer; who presently forgot his Sunday manners, and reproachfully
demanded that "printing press you promised."

"'Cause if I had it I'd be just as smart as you, you know."

"Smartersyou!" cried the echo, clasping Ned's neck with that choking
affection of his.

Ned turned upon his other self and pummeled him well, declaring:

"No, you wouldn't neither, Luis Garcia! 'Twouldn't be your printing
press, and you can't spell cat backwards! So, there!"

"Cat backwards, dogboycat," gurgled Luis, in a rapture of mere
existence.

Ninian laughed at the comical pair, finding them infinitely diverting;
and was only brought back to his immediate duty by the insistence of
the small messenger, who demanded:

"Why don't you read your letter? I should think anybody what makes
newspapers could read a little girl's letter."

"That's a fact; I'll see if I can;" and accordingly spread out the
scrap of wrapping paper, which had not been very smooth to start with
and had suffered further ill treatment at Ned's hand. The note
required a second reading before he could fully comprehend its
meaning, which he then found sufficiently startling to send him
stableward in hot haste. The message was from the little captain, and
was worded thus:

"dear mister sharp please excuse me i must go to a Dyeing man and i
Mustnt Tell Who cause if my mother was Home I Wood and she wood say
yes. She always helps dyeing folks and sick ones one the boys will go
and he can ride Moses or prince Which he likes. I guess marty so i
Cant right any more the paper is so littul and i cant Stay."

"JESSICA."

This had been written with a coarse blue penc