It was torn in several places, the ink
of the writing in it was faded, and the paper was disfigured by stains
of grease, tobacco, and dirt generally. The direction was in such a
condition, that the word "Brazils," at the end, was alone legible.
Inside, it was not in a much better state. The date at the top,
however, still remained tolerably easy to distinguish: it was "December
20th, 1827."
Mat looked first at this, and then at the paragraph he had just been
reading, in Joanna Grice's narrative. After that, he began to count on
his fingers, clumsily enough--beginning with the year 1828 as Number
One, and ending with the current year, 1851, as Number Twenty-three.
"Twenty-three," he repeated aloud to himself, "twenty-three years: I
shall remember that."
He looked down a little vacantly, the next moment, at the old torn
letter again. Some of the lines, here and there, had escaped stains and
dirt sufficiently to be still easily legible; and it was over these
that his eyes now wandered. The first words that caught his attention
ran thus:--"I am now, therefore, in this bitter affliction, more than
ever desirous that all past differences between us should be forgotten,
and"--here the beginning of another line was hidden by a stain, beyond
which, on the cleaner part of the letter, the writing proceeded:--"In
this spirit, then, I counsel you, if you can get continued employment
anywhere abroad, to accept it, instead of coming back"--(a rent in the
paper made the next words too fragmentary to be easily legible).
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