Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/66

 were Miss Nelly and Miss Lucy, were they not?—and believe me most cordially and gratefully, Your humble servant, .

"And not a word, not one word, about the Fortune of the Indies!" Jane said aloud.

Miss Lucia happened to be passing the office-door at that moment, and came in to find out why her grand-niece was soliloquizing. So Jane gave a hasty explanation and thrust the letter at her aunt.

"My dear! To write to a stranger!" protested Miss Lucia, adjusting her spectacles.

"But he isn't a stranger," Jane countered, inspired. "Just read it and see!"

Aunt Lucia did read it, and called Aunt Ellen, and they grew quite pink-cheeked and laughed with small thin chirps of amazed pleasure. They remembered the young man very well, it seemed, and had quite forgotten his name, except that he was called "Bart" in those days.

"You had on a lavender silk frock—do you remember, Ellen?—and he said you looked like a wisteria blossom come to life."

"O Lucia!" Miss Ellen protested; "and he