Any one could see the change in him since then, but it was hardly to be believed that the old feeling did not abide at the bottom of the well! Mrs.
Selden was annoyed.

The letter might have been from Mr.Madison, or Mr.
Monroe, or Albert Gallatin, or John Randolph,--though John Randolph, too, had quarrelled with the President,--or Spencer Roane, or almost any great Democrat-Republican.

It was no business of hers whom it was from.
A colour crept into her withered cheek, and she tapped her black silk shoe upon the floor of the coach.

"Yes; a giant of a sum," Lewis had said with great easiness, and then had put the paper out of sight.

Why had he not been frank?
He might have said to an old friend, "That's a cipher,--you see men will be riddlers still!" and then have laid away the letter as securely as he pleased! Mrs.Selden hated deceit in anything, great or small, and hated to find flaws in folk of whom she was fond.