The desk was soon opened. He lifted one half, saw several old miniatures
which had belonged to his own father's family, a lock of his father's
hair which he remembered to have seen in his mother's possession, and
one or two trinkets. No letter.
It was not without some slight trepidation that he opened the other
side, and there, nothing else being with it, a large letter sealed with
black and directed to himself in his step-father's well-known hand, it
was lying.
As he took the letter up, a sensation so faint, so ethereal that it is
hard to describe or characterize it, but which most of us have felt at
least once, came over him, or rather came about him, as if something
from without suggested a presence.
He was free from any sensation of fear, but he chose to speak; lifting
up his face as if the old man had been standing before him, he said
aloud, "Yes, I promised." The feeling was gone as he spoke, and he broke
the seal.
A long letter. His eyes, as it was folded, fell first on these
surprising words, "I forbade my mother to leave her property to me," and
then, "I have never judged her," the aged writer continued, "for in her
case I know not what I could have done.
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