Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/310

300 The Bennets very seldom had letters. They had a daily paper from Boston; and they had a good many miscellaneous newspapers sent them by a minister uncle of Mrs. Bennet's, who was well to do, and had more newspapers than he knew what to do with. But a letter was an event; and a letter to Tilly was still more of one.

Captain 'Lisha turned Netty's neat little letter over and over again, and puzzled his brains vainly trying to make out the postmark of which only the ".… haven" could be read.

"There 's lots of 'havens' all over the country," thought Captain 'Lisha; "but we don't know anybody in any of 'em. It 's a woman's writing; it might be some one of the last summer's folks writing for tidies." "Here 's a letter for you, Tilly," said Captain 'Lisha, as he entered the kitchen.

"A letter for me!" cried Tilly. "Why, who can it be from?"

"I was a wondering myself," said her father. "I did n't know you wrote to anybody."

"I don't," said Tilly, slowly cutting the envelope with a case-knife.

Mrs. Bennet dropped the skimmer, with which she was taking doughnuts out of the boiling fat, and came and looked over Tilly's shoulder.

"Oh, mother, mother! The doughnuts will burn," exclaimed Tilly. "I 'll read it out loud to you;" and she followed her mother back to the