He did not return until three days later , when he appeared at Miss Sally 's , dusty and triumphant . `` Joyce is out , '' said Miss Sally . `` I 'm glad of it , '' said Willard recklessly . `` It 's you I want to see , Miss Sally . I have something to show you . I 've been all the way home to get it . '' From his pocketbook Willard drew something folded and creased and yellow that looked like a letter . He opened it carefully and , holding it in his fingers , looked over it at Miss Sally . `` My grandmother 's maiden name was Jean Merritt , '' he said deliberately , `` and Stephen Merritt was my great-uncle . I never saw him -- he died when I was a child -- but I 've heard my father speak of him often . '' Miss Sally turned very pale . She passed her cobwebby handkerchief across her lips and her hand trembled . Willard went on . `` My uncle never married . He and his sister Jean lived together until her late marriage . I was not very fond of my grandmother . She was a selfish , domineering woman -- very unlike the grandmother of tradition . When she died everything she possessed came to me , as my father , her only child , was then dead . In looking over a box of old papers I found a letter -- an old love letter . I read it with some interest , wondering whose it could be and how it came among Grandmother 's private letters .
It was signed ` Stephen , ' so that I guessed my XXXXX had been the writer , but I had no idea who the Sally was to whom it was written , until the other day .
Grandmother Jean Joyce Merritt Sally Willard father great-uncle letters lips