ell-filled
mail-bag.

He took it into the drawing-room, where Miss Cavendish and her guests,
the Rev. Dr. Jones, Miss Electra, and Mrs. Grey, were gathered around
the center-table, under the light of the chandelier.

Emma Cavendish unlocked the mail-bag and turned its contents out upon
the table.

"Newspapers and magazines only, I believe. No letters. Help yourselves,
friends. There are paper-knives on the pen-tray. And in the absence of
letters, there is a real pleasure in unfolding a fresh newspaper and
cutting the leaves of a new magazine," said the young lady, as she
returned the empty bag to the messenger.

But her companions tumbled over the mail still in the vain hope of
finding letters.

"None for me; yet I did hope to get one from my new manager at Beresford
Manors," muttered Dr. Jones, in a tone of disappointment.

"And none for me either, though I do think the girls at Mount Ascension
might write to me," pouted Electra.

"And of course there are none for me! There never are! No one ever
writes to me. The poor have no correspondents. I did not expect a
letter, and I am not disappointed," murmured Mary Grey, with that
charming expression, between a smile and a sigh, that she had always
found so effective.

"Well, there is no letter for any one, it seems, so none of us have
cause to feel slighted by fortune more than others," added Emma
Cavendish, cheerfully.

But Peter, the post-office boy, looked from one to the other, with his
black eyes growing bigger and bigger, as he felt with his hand in the
empty mail-bag and exclaimed:

"I'clar's to de law der was a letter for some uns. Miss Emmer, 'cause I
see de pos'marser put it in de bag wid his own hands, which it were a
letter wid a black edge all 'round de outside of it, and a dob o' black
tar, or somethink, onto the middle o' the back of it."

As the boy spoke, the Rev. Dr. Jones began again to turn over the
magazines and newspapers until he found the letter, which had slipped
between the covers of the _Edinboro' Review_.

"It is for you, my dear," he said, as he passed the missive across the
table to Miss Cavendish.

"I wonder from whom it comes? The handwriting is quite unfamiliar to me.
And the postmark is New York, where I have no correspondents whatever,"
said Emma, in surprise, as she broke the black seal.

"Oh, maybe it's a circular from some merchant who has heard of the great
Alleghany heiress," suggested Electra.

"You will permit