The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1905-02-21

took out the packet of letters and be-
gan reading them. An observant by
stander would have noticed that none
of them waA inclosed in an envelope
There was every reason why all should
have been hidden from the prying gaze
In that manner, for they were love let
tiers. Anne had burned the envelopes
avoid seeing what was written on each.
Not one of the lot had been addressed
to her Not one of the lot had been
meant for her. They were the love let
tiers of another woman.
whats the harm?" Anne had asked
herself when she had adopted them.
The other woman had been married the
day of the adoption and not to the au-
thor of the letters. She was q bright
little creature, fluffy from the hens Of
her various skirts to the topmost curl
of her fair hair, and she had kept as
est finger as there were rings around
the other seven. An author of love let
tiers more or less had not meant very
much to her. So, when she finally de-
cided upon Fred, the epistles of Joe and
WIN had found mutual resting place
at the bottom of an extremely dainty
japanese wastebasket which occupied
at least a twentieth of the floor space
in the room the girls had tenanted to-
gether. On top of them the bright lit
tie creature had piled numberless dance
programmes, fans with names scrawl-
ed across them and couple Of period
icals containing verse from the pen Of
the irrepressible Will
OF the three men Will had been most
In earnest. The afternoon of the mar
rage he had gone west to work for a
Chicago newspaper and to forget The
latter part of this purpose was set
forth beautifully in one of the letters in
the packet.
Anne Stacey, who had written ION
space" for a living since girlhood and
who had never had a sweetheart, had
rescued the bundle from the Japanese
wastebasket. She recalled Will as a
fine, broad shouldered young fellow
who up to the time that he had ceased
visiting her chum. few months be-
fore. had paid no attention whatever to
the large mouthed, small nosed, intel
lectual girl who always made point of
having an engagement somewhere with
in ten minutes of the hour of his ar
rival. Anne had never been noticed
and she didn't expect it. She prompt
ly forgot being snubbed and remem-
bered only that once VIII had pressed
her hand quite tightly while he said,
Little woman, think you understand
what this means to me-
Recollecting this, Anne had adopted
the letters. At first she had enjoyed
them only as love letters-letters which
were real and which said just what
she had been making her people say
for ever so long. Then, as the deser-
ton of the bright little creature came
to be realized as an endless desertion
and as she made no new friends, those
ardent notes had commenced to seem
her very own. Their author was her
lover. She read them over and over
and over, making them more personal
with each reading. For three years
she fed her hungry soul with them,
and then, being temporarily destitute
of ideas for STORIES it had occurred to
her that they We're the clew to one
ready made-a story of which she was
the heroine.
"A Taker Of Crumbs" was duly fin
ished that very night and dispatched to
the mail box in charge of the young
woman in the room adjoining, who was
going out to buy ice cream. Anne
thought about it great deal in the
days that followed. A dozen times she
would have given the world to have