'What is it?' asked Joseph James mildly. 'Go ahead, Clem.'
'You ain't bad-tempered, are you? You said you wasn't.'
'Not I! Best-tempered feller you could have come across. Look at me
smiling.'
His grin was in a measure reassuring, but he had caught sight of the
piece of paper in her hand, and eyed it steadily.
'You know you played mother a trick a long time ago,' Clem pursued,
'when you went off an' left that child on her 'ands.'
'Hollo! What about that?'
'Well, it wouldn't be nothing but fair if someone was to go and play
tricks with _you_--just to pay you off in a friendly sort o' way--see?'
Mr. Snowdon still smiled, but dubiously.
'Out with it!' he muttered. 'I'd have bet a trifle there was some
game on. You're welcome, old girl. Out with it!'
'Did you know as I'd got a brother in 'Stralia--him as you used to
know when you lived here before?'
'You said you didn't know where he was.'
'No more we do--not just now. But he wrote mother a letter about
this time last year, an' there's something in it as I'd like you to
see. You'd better read for yourself.'
Her husband laid down his pipe on the mantel-piece and began to cast
his eye over the letter, which was much defaced by frequent
foldings, and in any case would have been difficult to decipher, so
vilely was it scrawled.
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