summer noon
It is n't our secret , you know ; it is dear Esther Wynn 's . '' I do not know why it was that I locked up those four letters of Esther Wynn 's and did not look at them for many months . I felt very guilty in keeping them ; but a power I could not resist seemed to paralyze my very hand when I thought of opening the box in which they were . At last , long after I had left Uncle Jo 's house , I took them out one day , and in the quiet and warmth of a summer noon I copied them slowly , carefully , word for word . Then I hid the originals in my bosom , and walked alone , without telling any one whither I was going , to a wild spot I knew several miles away , where a little mountain stream came foaming and dashing down through a narrow gorge to empty itself into our broad and placid river . I sat down on a mossy granite boulder , and slowly tore the letters into minutest fragments . One by one I tossed the white and tiny shreds into the swift water , and watched them as far as I could see them .