"How could I write to you when I never saw you before, and don't know
your name. Do you think a lady like me would marry a colored man?"

"Who said anything about that?" asked the other, opening his eyes wide
in astonishment. "I couldn't marry, nohow, for I've got a wife and four
children."

Rachel felt ready to collapse. Was it possible that she had made a
mistake, and that this was not her unknown correspondent, Daniel?

"There is some mistake," she said, nervously. "Where is that letter you
thought I wrote? Have you got it with you?"

"Here it is, ma'am."

He handed Rachel a letter addressed in a small hand to Daniel Thompson.

She opened it and read:

"Mr. Thompson: I hear you are out of work. I may be able to give
you a job. Meet me at Washington Park, Tuesday afternoon, at four
o'clock. I shall wear a blue ribbon round my neck, and you may have
a red rose pinned to your coat. Otherwise I might not know you.

"RACHEL HARDING."


"Some villain has done this," said Rachel, wrathfully. "I never wrote
that letter."