he
back. The first page looked as if it had been written over with some sort
of sympathetic ink; but not a word could be deciphered. Folded in a small
piece of the thinnest of paper was a mouldy and crumbling flower, of a
dull-brown color; on the paper was written,--"Pomegranate blossom, from
Jaffa," and a few lines of poetry, of which we could make out only here
and there a word.

Even Aunt Sarah was thoroughly aroused and excited now. Robert had been in
the cellar very late on the previous night, and was sure that at that time
no papers were on the stairs.

"I never go down them stairs, sir," said Robert, "without looking--and
listening too," he added under his breath, with a furtive look back at the
cook, who was standing in the second doorway of the butler's pantry. The
truth was, Robert had been afraid of the cellar ever since the finding of
the second letter: and all the servants shared his uneasiness.

Between eleven at night and seven the next morning, this mute ghostly waif
from Palestine, with the half-century old dust of a pomegranate flower in
its keeping, had come up that dark stairway. It appeared now that the
letters were always found on the fourth stair from the top. This fact had
not before been elicited, but there seemed little doubt about it. Even
little Princess said,--

"Yes, papa, I am sure that the one I found was on that stair; for I now
remember Fido came up with only just one or two bounds to the top, as soon
as he saw me."

We were very sober. The little children chattered on; it meant nothing to
them, this breath from such a far past. But to hearts old enough to
comprehend, there was something infinitely sad and suggestive in it. I
already felt, though I had not read one word of her writing, that I loved
the woman called Esther; as for my uncle, his very face was becoming
changed by the thought of her, and the mystery about the appearance of the
letters. He began to be annoyed also; for the servants were growing
suspicious, and unwilling to go into the cellar. Mary the cook declared
that on the morning when she found this last letter, something white
brushed by her at the foot of the stairs; and Robert said that he had for
a long time heard strange sounds from that staircase late at night.

Just after this, my aunt went away for a visit; and several days passed
without any further discoveries on the stairs. My uncle and I spent long
hours in talking over the mystery, and he urged me to