Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/96

 "Dust and everything," he commented, groping. "And old pieces of newspaper and junk," he added, clawing out a handful of rumpled paper and dropping it beneath the table. "Now stand by, Jane, and help me."

But Jane had disappeared under the table, whence she spoke indistinctly.

"Wait a minute! I'm after the paper. It might be old and interesting."

Old it certainly was—yellow and frail. Jane, upright again, was unfolding it carefully.

"It isn't newspaper at all," she said, and then was silent, with a sudden silence that made Mark glance up quickly. He looked over her shoulder.

"My stars!" he said.

For the paper was completely covered with fine characters that looked Chinese, and at the bottom it was signed by the first Mark Ingram in flowing yellow script. Neither dared to guess what it could be. It all seemed too improbable, too like a story-book. They could not even hazard an opinion about a document so romantically found. They flew to the aunts with it, and the aunts put on their spectacles and peered and shook their heads. That it