'
'Not in time--eh?'
'I'm afraid,' and he faltered, 'he did.'
'Did he or did he not?' demanded my mother.
'What does he say?' exclaimed my father.
'Sir' (always an unpropitious beginning for poor Clarence), 'I
should prefer not showing you.'
'Nonsense!' exclaimed my mother: 'you do no good by concealing it!'
'Let me see his letter,' said my father, in the voice there was no
gainsaying, and absolutely taking it from Clarence. None of us will
ever forget the tone in which he read it aloud at the breakfast-
table.
'DEAR BILL--What possessed you to send a death's-head to the feast?
The letter would have bitten no one in my chambers. A nice scrape I
shall be in if you let out that your officious precision forwarded
it. Of course at the last moment I could not upset the whole affair
and leave Lydia to languish in vain. The whole thing went off
magnificently. Keep counsel and no harm is done. You owe me that
for sending on the letter.--Yours,
'J. G. W.'
Clarence had not read to the end when the letter was taken from him.
Indeed to inclose such a note in a dispatch sure to be opened en
famille was one of Griffith's haphazard proceedings, which arose
from the present being always much more to him than the absent.
Clarence was much shocked at hearing these last sentences, and
exclaimed, 'He meant it in confidence, papa; I implore you to treat
it as unread!'
My father was always scrupulous about private letters, and said, 'I
beg your pardon, Clarence; I should not have forced it from you.
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