The name was familiar,--that of his father's old foreman, whom he knew to be somewhere in the army; doubtless the same man.

Unquestionably, he thought, that was the reason he was so attracted to it; but why he should take up the delicate little missive, scan it again and again, hold it in his hand with the same touch with which he would have pressed a rare flower, and lay it down as reluctantly as he would have yielded a known and visible treasure,--that was the mystery.

He had never seen Francesca's writing, but he stood possessed, almost assured, of the belief that this letter was penned by her hand; and at last parted with it slowly and unwillingly, as though it were the dear hand of which he mused; then took himself to task for this boyish weakness and folly.
Nevertheless, he went in pursuit of Jim, not to question him,--he was too thorough a gentleman for that,--but led on partly by his desire to see a familiar face, partly by this folly, as he called it with a sort of amused disdain.
Folly, however, it was not, save in such measure as the subtle telegraphings between spirit and spirit can be thus called.

Unjustly so called they are, constantly; it being the habit of most people to denounce as heresy or ridicule as madness things too high for their sight or too deep for their comprehension.

As these people would say, "oddly enough," or "by an extraordinary coincidence," this very letter was from Miss Ercildoune,--a letter which she wrote as she purposed, and as she well knew how to write, in behalf of Sallie.