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 but spreading it open and reading it she glanced up in surprise.

"Why, it purports to be" she commenced.

"Exactly. It purports to be one I have written; but which I swear I never saw until your mother drew it out of my reticule, which hung in my closet. Had Mistress Condit been of suspicious nature it might have made matters vastly unpleasant. I had asked your mother to hand me my kerchief, which was in the reticule. Do not think she was prying."

Mehitable read the note aloud.

"But when one looks closely it is not your handwriting, Nancy," went on Mehitable. "Why it looks more like"

She stopped abruptly, but Mistress Nancy had not heard her, having moved over to look out of the window. Rain was falling again, the freezing winter weather having suddenly melted into the warmth of spring. It was all grayness and drabness, even the fire seeming to have lost its cheeriness as it sputtered and scolded upon the hearth. Mehitable joined the other and stared out at the rain, too.

But as she gazed she beheld an ominous sight. Around a turn in Second Road, trotting biiskly from the north, was just such a party of men as had come for