The next morning found Blossy kneeling before a plump, little,
leather-bound, time-worn trunk which she kept under the eaves of the
kitchen chamber. The trunk was packed hard with bundles of old letters.
Some her younger fingers had tied with violet ribbon; some they had
bound with pink; others she had fastened together with white silk cord;
and there were more and more bundles, both slim and stout, which Blossy
had distinguished by some special hue of ribbon in the long ago, each
tint marking a different suitor's missives.

To her still sentimental eye the colors remained unfaded, and each would
bring to her mind instantly the picture of the writer as he had been in
the golden days. But save to Blossy's eye alone there were no longer any
rainbow tints in the little, old trunk; for every ribbon and every cord
had faded into that musty, yellow brown which is dyed by the passing of
many years.

Abraham discovered her there, too engrossed in the perusal of one of
the old letters to have heeded his creaking steps upon the stairs.

"Didn't see yer, till I 'most stumbled on yer," he began apologetically.
"I come fer the apple-picker. Thar's a handful of russets in the orchard
yit, that's calc'latin' ter spend Christmas up close ter heaven;
but--Say, Blossy," he added more loudly, since she did not raise her
head, "yew seen anythin' o' that air picker?"

Blossy glanced up from her ragged-edged crackly _billet-doux_ with a
start, and dropped the envelop to the floor.

For the moment, so deep in reminiscence was she, she thought Captain