“’I have borrowed the nets from the weir, Miss Matty.  Shall we drag the ponds to-night, or wait for the morning?’

“I remember staring in his face to gather his meaning; and when I did, I laughed out loud.  The horror of that new thought—­our bright, darling Peter, cold, and stark, and dead!  I remember the ring of my own laugh now.

“The next day Deborah was at home before I was myself again.  She would not have been so weak as to give way as I had done; but my screams (my horrible laughter had ended in crying) had roused my sweet dear mother, whose poor wandering wits were called back and collected as soon as a child needed her care.  She and Deborah sat by my bedside; I knew by the looks of each that there had been no news of Peter—­no awful, ghastly news, which was what I most had dreaded in my dull state between sleeping and waking.

“The same result of all the searching had brought something of the same relief to my mother, to whom, I am sure, the thought that Peter might even then be hanging dead in some of the familiar home places had caused that never-ending walk of yesterday.  Her soft eyes never were the same again after that; they had always a restless, craving look, as if seeking for what they could not find.  Oh! it was an awful time; coming down like a thunder-bolt on the still sunny day when the lilacs were all in bloom.”

“Where was Mr Peter?” said I.

“He had made his way to Liverpool; and there was war then; and some of the king’s ships lay off the mouth of the Mersey; and they were only too glad to have a fine likely boy such as him (five foot nine he was), come to offer himself.  The captain wrote to my father, and Peter wrote to my mother.  Stay! those letters will be somewhere here.”

We lighted the candle, and found the captain’s letter and Peter’s too.  And we also found a little simple begging letter from Mrs Jenkyns to Peter, addressed to him at the house of an old schoolfellow whither she fancied he might have gone.  They had returned it unopened; and unopened it had remained ever since, having been inadvertently put by among the other letters of that time.  This is it:-

“My dearest Peter,—­You did not think we should be so sorry as we are, I know, or you would never have gone away.  You are too good.  Your father sits and sighs till my heart aches to hear him.  He cannot hold up his head for grief; and yet he only did what he thought was right.  Perhaps he has been too severe, and perhaps I have not been kind enough; but God knows how we love you, my dear only boy.  Don looks so sorry you are gone.  Come back, and make us happy, who love you so much.  I know you will come back.”

But Peter did not come back.  That spring day was the last time he ever saw his mother’s face.  The writer of the letter—­the last—­ the only person who had ever seen what was written in it, was dead long ago; and I, a stranger, not born at the time when this occurrence took place, was the one to open it.