When Nelly Trefethen reached home a half-hour later she received such a confused account of what had just happened as caused her rosy cheeks to take on a deeper color and filled her with a strange agitation. Mr. Peril had gone to be a sailor, and would come back very shortly as captain of a ship. Perhaps it would be a splendid, great steamer, such as she had seen lying at the Marquette ore docks. He had left his love for her; he would have something of the greatest importance to say the next time he saw her; and she was not to be turned out of her room again. What could he mean by that, and what a very strange thing it was for a young man to say? Since he had said it to her mother, though, it must have meant--Oh dear! how she wished she had not gone out that morning, and what an endless time a whole week seemed!
At length, anxious to escape from her mother's torrent of words, and to be alone with her own thoughts, the blushing girl fled up-stairs on the pretence of putting Mr. Peril's room in order.
The very first thing she spied on entering the room, about which his belongings were scattered in every direction, was a letter lying on the floor, and almost hidden beneath the bed. Picking it up, she was surprised to find it sealed, and still more so to note that it was addressed to Mr. Richard _Peveril_. How could that be? Was their guest living among them under an assumed name? No, of course he wouldn't do such a thing; and this letter must have been handed to him by mistake. That was the reason why he had not opened it. The names were very much alike in sound, though so differently spelled. Besides, this letter was addressed in a lady's handwriting, and evidently came from some foreign country. She knew Mr. Peril was an American, because he had said so. He had also told them that he was, so far as he knew, without a relative in the world, so there were no sisters or young lady cousins to write to him.
She did not think he could be engaged, because he had never mentioned the fact, while all the other young men of her acquaintance were in the habit of talking very freely about their "best girls," if they were so fortunate as to have such. Besides, had not Mr. Peril just left his love for _her_, and a message to the effect that he had something very important to tell _her_? She would keep this hateful letter, though, and confront him with it the moment she saw him again. Then his manner would convey the information she wanted. How she did long to open it and just glance at its contents! The impulse to do this was so strong that only by thrusting the letter into her pocket could she resist it.