She soon gathered that Major Lackland's memoranda seemed to refer to letters which had passed between himself and Judge Hawkins.

She shaped her course without difficulty the day that that hint reached her.
That night she sat in her room till all was still, and then she stole into the garret and began a search.

She rummaged long among boxes of musty papers relating to business matters of no, interest to her, but at last she found several bundles of letters.

One bundle was marked "private," and in that she found what she wanted.

She selected six or eight letters from the package and began to devour their contents, heedless of the cold.
By the dates, these letters were from five to seven years old.