THE ROMANCE OF A DEAD LETTER.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11511, 18 February 1903, Page 3

THE ROMANCE OF A DEAD LETTER.

Bt H. R. Ebsos. It wa« something of a task to prepare the United Suites Post Office Exhibit for the Pan-American . Exposition. To the collection of wax personages, model maps, and other appliances which were made for the Centennial World's Fair, and exhibited at succeeding national functions, must re added a Cuban mail carrier, a Porto Rican with a donkey, done in wax fit for a cathedral's candles, and sundry new devices in the way of letter-bags and boxes. As troublesome as any was the collection of Dead Letters. Those which had been used on similar occasions had either been destroyed or distributed in their allotted places to await their time for ingTo Frederick Denny, one of the chief assistant clerkg, was assigned the duty of selecting an. attractive and suitable line of samples from that department. He rummaged boxes until lie had a curious assortment—merchants' bills, invitations to dine, letters on many subjects?, written on all colours and styles of paper, and axjuantity of cheap jewellery. He sorted and arranged the packages, and then approachel a booth where a woman Bat opening letters and laying them in two piles—one of them small, composed of those whose signatures baffled her powers of divination, the other large, whose secrets were easily discovered. The other 'booths were occupied by women similarly employed—some young, some middle-aged, but all aware of ilr Denny's presence, and that affairs were veering slightly from their customary orbit. Oneglanced his way, and stealthily "fluffed" her wavy hair a trifle-, more. The others kept their eyes upon their work, but had learned the art of seeing without looking. His stopping at that booth occasioned great surprise. Indeed, he was surprised himself. With all the others he was on terms of easy friendliness and merry jest and banter when they chanced to meet outside the office. To Cynthia Crawford he had bowed And raised his hat—or opened a door if they arrived at thd same time —but he had never exchanged a word with her beyond the strict requirements of the office routine. One's first impression of "Miss Crawford was that •she had been seared by some fierce conflagration. Her face was colourless, her hair pale brown. Her office dress was of soft grey cloth, with white vest-front, collar and tie, always spotlessly fresh and white. The rest indulged in more or leas of finery and colour—she never varied from the grey and white. There were no rebellious locks, no fluttering ribbons or Boft laces. On blustering mornings, when the other women rushed to the tiring-room to re-arrange loose ends, Miss Crawford emerged from her close veil as trim and tidy as My Lady from her sedan-chair. Possibly it was because she was so colourless, so neutral, enveloped in her own repressed personality, -that he inclined toward her. He was in haste, and 1 could ill afford time for quip and repartee with the bright-eyed women whom he knew. He was fatigued, and not at his best. He had come, annoyed and angry, from a boat with the janitor, who had allowed the gorgeous uniforms of some of the wax figures to be' riddled by moths, and had neglected other work that had been entrusted to him. Thus it may well have been the instinctive turning of a worried j man to the most restful, quiet woman near. She looked up with a faint surprise, when he dropped wearily into a chair opposite to her with a murmur of apology, and listened while he told his errand. "I have nearly, completed) my collection for tie 'Pan-American,' Mifls Crawford, but it is a very uninteresting one, and needs to be somewhat relieved. Can you direct me to something Uiat will be better worth showing? You have been here so long, you r know," he pleaded, as an odd light flashed into her calm' blue eyes. ! "Something interesting?" she repeated, laying down.the letter in ho? hand. [ "Yes. There is always' a crowd around the oases of Dead Letters, and the people will be disappointed if they are wholly commonplace." A tiny red spot stained the whiteness of her cheek. She hesitated, bit her lip, and frankly met his gaze. "There is a letter, Mr Denny, that has never seemed to me to be really 'dead.' It has been here for about eight years; but—well, I know you will think it is absurd, but I can't resist a premonition that it will yet bo delivered to the right person." Her voice was full of feeling. The tiny red spota changed.to a lpvely flush that overspread! her cheeks. Her eyes were misty with pity for the letter that could not die. Was this the "colourless Mia Crawford T the graven image which glided to its place in the morning, toiled wordlessly all day and disappeared at night? It was a miracle. The statue had come to life. It was a woman, charming in iher apofehesis! H» own cheek felt a sudden answering glow, but he responded quietly: "That is the very letter I want, Misa Crawford. Perhaps its exhibition will lead to its discovery by the rightful owner. Can you direct me to it? I confess I want to flee it, anyhow. It must be something out of the ordinary." She crossed the room to the cases, drew an envelope from behind the neatly stacked files in a certain drawer, and gave it to him. . "I hid 1 it when its time came to be burned," she confessed, like an honest child "Read it, and tell me ii you could let a thing like that be burned like a srocer'e bill?" He read it slowly. His eyes grew moist and tender. "Thank you!" he said quite simply. "You were right. That letter 1* not 'dead.'"

"Sometimes in the night, wlien I «m alone at home, I fancy it is crying, and I long to comfort it and eend it home!" She spoke impetuously, her* habitual constraint vanishing in the warmth of his quick, unexpected sympathy. "Trust me with it, then," he begged. "1 hope I am as true a man as you are a woman. I will carry it with my personal belongings, and give it the oest place in the exhibit. It shall not be my fault it the writer does not find out th~at it was never delivered, or if the person addressed never knows that it was written." He looked at the envelope. "At is easy to see that there was a blunder somewhere. It is dated 'May 3d,' and postmarked 'May 10th.' It must have lain in a servant's coat pocket for a week, or adhered to the side of a mail-box. That was too bad! But we'll do our best, Miss Crawford, to make up for the delay." She clasped her hands. Her «yes glowed like stars. Her lips parted in a tremulous smile. He bent slightly towards her. "Have I your permission to—report any interesting developments?" She hesitated. The old constraint was coming back. "You may as well consent,' he urged. "I don't believe I can refrain from letting you know it if anything really important happens to tiiis letter. Besides, this is a species of partnership, and it would be unbusinesslike not to report results." Again that rosy flush and charming smile. "I shall be very glad to hear from the letter," she replied, sitting *t her taW *- , L „ -. The pretty, unwonted piay had no* lacked curious spectators, though no word of the dialogue had reached their ears. "Mr Denny 1" called a sprightly blonde, a* the man went slowly past her booth. "Don't you want something extremely funny for your exhibit?" He did, and the young woman produced for him a letter and* a package—the former qlever and piquant, presenting a shavingset to the writer's young cousin. The razor was nicked like a rip-saw, the brush was a few broom-straws tied to a penholder, the soap was of the yellow laundry variety, the pad was of brown paper. He laughed at the grotesque outfit, thanked her gaily and passed out. At the top of the winding stair, he glanced back at the fair -face framed in the pale brown hair, ■still stirred by the accent stress of feeling. "After all these years, I have seen her for ,«a>».i>»^>fa~--*j»^«*»-t^--^-*--'"»»' iii ' Jl « J -*--- ja ** t --

The brief, business-like communication which he sent to Miss Crawford a week later was so clearly within the spirit of her permission that her strait notions of propriety suffered no shock. It announced tha* The Letter had been neatly "framed, and had bun placed in the showcase after everything else was in order, and the details of guards had begun their daily and nightly vigils. One would have thought it the Kohinoor diamond.

She replied briefly, in a quaint, graceful note, written in an exquisitely small clear hand, thanking him for his thoughtfulness, and expressing ;ui unhasrging faith that something would come of it.

Two wetfcs later, he wrote again, at greater length, reporting that The Letter was already attracting an auspicious degree of attention. Schoolgirls brought their mates to see it, dragging them ruthlessly past the Smithsonian marvels, the miniature lighthouiaes, the mode-Is of fortifications and war vessels. Lovers brought their sweethearts, to read and sigh, and slyly press each other's hands for joy that no black cloud of mystery overhung tneir hearts. Denny's was a rather daring letter'; but she, rememberir/g the instant sympathy in hi* dark eyes when she told him of The Letter, sent- the friendliest little missive in return, so sweet and gracious tbat he treasured it- in a very inner pocket, and thought it hard to wait another fortnight. •

It was now barely three weeks since The Letter was taken from its hidingplace, but already Frederick Denny had written two letters to a lady with whom he had scarcely'been on speaking terms till then, and tjie leaven of The Letter was working in unexpected places.

Sixty miles away, -vise Jane Locke satin her class-room, conducting an exercise in English Composition. She had left the young ladies to the freedom of their own wills in the matter of subjects for their essays, and the result was an odd assortment—Spring, * Patriotism. Poetry, The Influence of this or that obscure, abstract Sometihing-or-other, about which schoolgirls know so much; and the teacher breathed a sigh of relief when a clever girl in the rear seat announced her title: "What I liked best at the Pan-American Exposition."

Here, at last, was something definite and practical. The girl had made good use of -eyes and ears during a short visit between Friday's and Monday's lessons; the 1 list of things" she liked was long, and each was outlined in a few clear, vivid sentences.

"It was a 6cene I pever shall forget!" she declared. "But more than buildings, fountains, or even the wonderful electric lighting, I liked a Dead Letter in a showcase in the Government Building. It was in the dearest little hand, and had a border of round O's all around the margins. I'd give anything I possess if I could. deliver jthat letter to the person to whom it was addressed! I copied it, thinking you might like to share it with me."

In the gnarly Apple-tree. May third. Year of Our Love, One, Dearest Prince Lightheart:

So much too good, and patient, and kind to me, who am so cross and naughty! Did not you know I did not mean a word of it? I did not I I—did—not I I started to climb down and run after you before you turned the corner of the hedge; but that Miss Collins came along, and she hae such a gift for making something out of nothing I So I kept atia.' Your sorry letter came this mow-

ing. I had thought you would come yourself I lam answering it with tears. I'm so sorry! I do love you! Never doubt me again, no matter what- I say! Some of these O's ere tears and some ore kisses. Divide them as you will, they are oil your own. And if you have forgiven mo, come again to-morrow to the gnarly tree * ond-JEXSY.

The other girls had turned in their seats, the better to hear the reader, and so it befell that no one saw the teacher gasp at the opening sentence, turn deeply, darkly red, then white, and finally drop her liead on her folded arms upon the desk. She had fainted quite away before the letter was half read through.

It was Friday. Monday's tasks wero two days off, and Buffalo only sixty miles be disturbed. Mr Torrenoe will be here in about fifteen minutes, and we shall not need to detain ywi more than two minutes after he arrives." away. At eight o'clock the next morning, Frederick Denny, having restored to their proper stations the waxen postmen and soldiers which th© charwomen always' left sociably awry, sat down to amuse himself with the morning papers' until the throngs of sightseers should 'begin to arrive. At five minutes past eight, a woman entered from the Fisheries Building. . She was tall and slender", and when she threw back her veil he perceived that her eyes were red and her cheeks mottled with much weeping. She glanced quickly from side to side, and presently catching sight of the showcase rushed' to it, gazed at The Letter, and leaned heavily against the thick glass, shaking with sobs. A dullard must have divined the truth. He hastened! to.her.aida-with offen of.as--. ■detainee." 6n« summoned all her pride and! went a few steps farther; but, Winded! by faer tears, stumbled against a Colonel of the Continental Army, buried her face >m his papier-mache breasty and gave vent to the pent-up agony of those bitter years of doubt. The glittering glass eyes in the blank wax face stared at the opposite wall above the poor bent head, and never changed expression; the staff arms made no motion to enfold the convulsed] form in a protecting clasp. The solitary living man among those bloodLess images felt a wild impulse to shatter their doll-faces and tear the-national uniform from 'their unchivalrio backs. The effigy reeled on its wooden feet, and seemed about to fall. The man sprang nimbly to it and braced it from' the rear wiuh, has own strong warm body till the paroxysm of grief had spent its fury. When the lady raised her wet face from the gorgeous coat, he offered his arm and led her unresisting to the private office, back of the* weather-beaten Overland Stage Coach." There were easy chairs, an open fire, books, papers, flowers* and bright rugs, and floods of golden sunshine came in at the open window. She sank into one of the great chairs, pallid and weary, and. began a stammering apology fox her steange behaviour; but he interrupted her with a simple,-direct question. "You wish to claim that framed letter, do you not?" She bowed. Her eyes were brimming. "In that case, it will only be necessary, for you to write for us the name of the person to whan it was originally addressed, and the Chief of ..this department will authorise me to deliver it to you." Again she bowed. He drew a writingtable to her side, and she wrote: "Mr George Blackburn, Middletown, New York." It was the name on the envelope that was hidden under the frame! "Thaak you," said he. "Please make yourself comfortable here. You will not He closed the door behind him, rubbed with a dry cloth the large damp spot on the Continental uniform, and whirled the insensate thing to its own particular crack in the floor, then glanced at his watch and sat down with the pap:r again. But though the headlines proclaimed that the world had misbehaved the day before

in several extraordinary ways, he could not. keep his thoughts on the printed page. He folded the sheet and sauntered to the gifts* case with a whimsical sense of bidding farewell to his charge. He read it through once more, throbbing with pity for the woman sitting in the office, and wondered how much it would have comforted him if he had learned that such a letter had gone astray. She must have waited long, and more than once, "in the gnarly tree," and wondered why, since she had made such full amends for her perversity, her lover never came. He smiled at the child* ish round O's in the margins, which stood for unkissed kisses and undried tears; and then he thought of the report he would send that night to his partner in this romantic business. Lest she. should then dissolve the partnership, his letter shooM contain a question, but be would go himself to receive the answer. A thing so sacred must not risk losing its way, like this sweet, sorrowful confession, or be pilloried for idle eyes to gaze upon. It was now twenty minutes past eight. Chief Torrenoe, punctual as the clock, would appear in ten minutes, the lady would olaim her. property, and go away. His-medi-tations were interrupted' by a tall, broadshouldered gentleman, who inquired for Mr Torrenoe.

"Ho wiU be faero In fen minutes, nr," was the polite reply, and ithe clerk applied his (handkerchief to the spot where him warm breath had made the. plate glial dim. The stranger's eyes mechanically followed the process. Then he stared at the framed letter for an instant, and seized fa an iron grasp the hand that held the hand* kerchief. .',■'•■■■".'". ■ ■ ' ."

/"Where did you Ota* letterF he de. mended, glaring -with. astonishment and wrath.

"In the Dead Letter Office, of .course 1" gasped the other, jerking his hand'Awky, and wondering if claimant* of that ill-fated letter were dropping from the skies,:-.■.■'.■; "Give it to me.instantly!" "I can't till Mr Torrenae tells ma to."

'TU smash the glass if you don't." "One moment, please, Mr—Mr Blackburn!" begged Dwmy,_«traggiing to repress a wild hurrah. "Answer one question before this goes any. further. Are yon married?" - .... - - /

"No. How oouM I be, when " Bis voice broke and his eyes smarted with sudden tears. ' ~ -

"Well, good heavensl Pardon. . I un» derstand. And now,, if you'will step into our office for one minute, 111 bring that letter to you. Oh, yes, it is necessary, you'll have to sign a receipt, you know. Great Scott, man! Get in there quick, Mr Torrenoe is almost here! Right that way, back of the old stage-coach. Just open the door, and walk in." -