He did not reply immediately; he was thinking.  “Pens in that country cut queer capers,” he said.  “Where are those letters, anyway?”

“Mother has put them away somewhere.”

“I should like to see them again.”

“Why?”

“Oh, on account of the memories they hold.  Get them for me, and I will give you a description of my surroundings at the time I wrote them.”

“Why, what a funny fellow you are!  Can’t you give me a description anyway?”

“No, not a good one.”

“But I don’t want to wake mother, and I don’t know that I can find the letters.”

“Go and see.”

“Oh, you are so headstrong.”

She went out, and he walked up and down the room, and then stood again at the window.  Ellen returned.

“Here they are.”

“Did you wake mother?”

“No, but I committed burglary.  I found the key and unlocked her trunk, and all to please you.”

“Good, and for the first time burglary shall be repaid with gratitude.”

He took the letters and looked at the sprawling characters drawn by the hand of his friend.  “When I copied this confession,” said he, “I was heavy of heart.  I was sitting in a small room, looking far down into a valley where nature seemed to keep her darkness stored, and from, another window, in the east, I could see a mountain where she made her light.”

“Go on,” she said, leaning with her elbows on the table.

He began to walk across the room, from the door to the grate, and to talk as one delivering a set oration.  “And I had just finished my work when a most annoying monkey, owned by the landlord, jumped through the window.  I was so startled that I threw the folded papers at him”—­

“What have you done!” she cried.

He had thrown the letters into the fire, he sprang forward, and snatching them, threw them on the hearth and stamped out the blaze.

“Oh, I do wish you hadn’t done that,” she said, hoarse with alarm.  “Mother reads these letters every day, and—­oh, I do wish you hadn’t done it!  They are all scorched—­ruined, and I wouldn’t have her know that I took them out of her trunk for anything.  What shall we do about it?  Oh, I know you didn’t mean to do it.”  He had looked appealingly at her.  “I wish I hadn’t got them.”

“It is only the copy of the confession that is badly burned.  The original is here on the table,” he said.

“I know, but what good will that do?  The letters are so scorched that it won’t do to return them.”

“But I can copy them,” he replied.

“Oh, you genius!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands.

“Thank you,” he said, bowing.  Then he added:  “Let me see—­this paper won’t do.  Where can we get some fool’s-cap?”

“There must be some in the library,” she answered.  “I’ll slip down and see.”

She hastened down-stairs and soon returned with the paper.  “I feel like a burglar,” she said.