ongruous.

"Oh," groaned Uncle Jo, after reading one of the most glowing letters,
"oh, was there really ever in any other man's arms but mine a woman who
could say such things as these between kisses? O Nell, Nell, thank God
that you haven't the dower of such a double fire in your veins as Esther
had!"

All night we sat reading, and reading, and reading. When the great clock
in the hall struck six, we started like guilty persons.

"Oh, my childie," said Uncle Jo, "how wrong this has been in me! Poor
little pale face, go to bed now, and remember, I forbid you to go to
school to-day; and I forbid your getting up until noon. I promise you I
will not look at another letter. I will lock them all up till to-morrow
evening, and then we will finish them."

I obeyed him silently. I was too exhausted to speak; but I was also too
excited to sleep. Until noon I lay wide awake on the bed, in my darkened
room, living over Esther Wynn's life, marvelling at the inexplicable
revelation of it which had been put into our hands, and wondering, until
the uncertainty seemed almost anguish, what was that end which we could
never know. Did she die in the Holy Land? or did she come home well and
strong? and did her lover die some day, leaving his secret treasure of
letters behind him, and poor stricken Esther to go to her grave in fear
lest unfriendly hands might have gained possession of her heart's records?
He was a married man we felt sure. Had the wife whom he did not love paced
up and down and up and down for years over these dumb witnesses to that of
which she had never dreamed? The man himself, when he came to die, did he
writhe, thinking of those silent, eloquent, precious letters which he must
leave to time and chance to destroy or protect? Did men carry him, dead,
down the very stairs on which he had so often knelt unseen and wafted
kisses towards the hidden Esther?

All these conjectures and questions, and thousands more, hurried in wild
confusion through my brain. In vain I closed my eyes, in vain I pressed my
hands on my eyelids; countless faces, dark, light, beautiful, plain,
happy, sad, threatening, imploring, seemed dancing in the air around my
bed, and saying, "Esther, Esther!"

We knew she was fair; for there was in one of the letters a tiny curl of
pale brown hair; but we believed from many expressions of hers that she
had no beauty. Oh, if I could but have known how she looked!

At last I fell asleep, and slept heavil