"Ask Judge Hubbard if I haven't. You'll see."

"But, my dear," said I gravely, drawing forth the packet from my
breast, "I, too, have my story to tell. I cannot call it a confession,
either; rather it is the story of somebody else--Hallo! who's broken
the seal?" For on shipboard I had beguiled the time by writing a sort
of journal to accompany Fanny's letter, and had placed all together in
a thick white envelope, addressing it, in legal parlance, "To whom it
may concern."

"_I_ did," said Bessie faintly, burying her face on my arm. "It fell
out of your pocket when they carried you up stairs; and I read it,
every word, twice over, before you came to yourself."

"You little witch! And I thought you were marrying me out of pure
faith in me, and not of sight or knowledge."

"It was faith, the highest faith," said Bessie proudly, and looking
into my eyes with her old saucy dash, "to know, to feel sure, that
that sealed paper concerned nobody but me."

And so she has ever since maintained.




Transcriber's Note:
This is a compiled version of a novel published in sections
in the LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE OF POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.