COUSIN EVERARD As Miss Barfoot's eye fell on the letters brought to her at breakfast-time, she uttered an exclamation, doubtful in its significance.

Rhoda Nunn, who rarely had a letter from any one, looked up inquiringly.
'I am greatly mistaken if that isn't my cousin Everard's writing.

I thought so.

He is in London.' Rhoda made no remark.
'Pray read it,' said the other, handing her friend the epistle after she had gone through it.
The handwriting was remarkably bold, but careful.

Punctuation was strictly attended to, and in places a word had been obliterated with a circular scrawl which left it still legible.
'DEAR COUSIN MARY,--I hear that you are still active in an original way, and that civilization is more and more indebted to you.