Those strangely arranged lines of figures on that paper which had fluttered to the floor, they formed no sum that Lewis Rand was working! The paper that they covered was not a stray leaf; it had been folded like a letter.

There was, she remembered, a piece of wax upon it.

It was a day when men of mark often wrote to each other in cipher--there was nothing strange in Lewis Rand so corresponding with whom he chose.

Most probably it was a letter from the President--though that could hardly be, seeing that the President was at Monticello! Mrs.Selden looked out of the window towards that low, green mountain which was now rising before her, and frowningly tried to remember some gossamer of speech which had been blown to her upon the Three-Notched Road.

A quarrel between Rand and the President ?--pshaw! it could hardly have been that! She had a sudden memory of Rand's face ere he grew to manhood, of the ardent eyes and the involuntary gesture of reverence which he used when he spoke of Mr.Jefferson.He could not even speak of him without a certain trembling of the voice.