When you are old--as old as I am--you will still find in those letters hidden treasures of thought, and truths of greater value than you, now, can realize.

But here--I have brought you your share of the afternoon's mail." When Aaron King opened the envelope that his friend laid on the table before him, he sat regarding its contents with an air of thoughtful meditation--lost to his surroundings.
The novelist--who had gone to the window and was looking into the rose garden--turned to speak to his friend; but the other did not reply.

Again, the man at the window addressed the painter; but still the younger man was silent.

At this, Conrad Lagrange came back to the table; an expression of anxiety upon his face.

"What is it, old man?
What's the matter?
No bad news, I hope ?" Aaron King, aroused from his fit of abstraction, laughed shortly, and held out to his friend the letter he had just received.