"MY DEAR ONE--MY DEAR LITTLE SWEETHEART: I have been thinking of you so much to-day that I must write. But I think it safer to send it under cover to dear kind Miss Webster, as one never can tell what spies there are about, and your disappearance from home has naturally created a great sensation here. The morning after you left your father came to Woodlea, and asked to see my uncle, and then me. He questioned me pretty sharply, and asked when I had last seen you. I risked it, and said at church, and that you had said nothing to me about leaving your father's house. Then Mrs. Temple attacked me on the subject, and finally yesterday I met that brute young Henderson, and I wish you had seen the desperate look he gave me as he passed me on the road. They say he drinks heavily, and is altogether going to the bad, and that he made a frightful scene when he heard you were gone. So you see altogether we can not be too careful. I dare not in fact leave here at present, or people--Henderson, and Mrs. Temple I am certain--would suspect I was going to join you. "Therefore, my dear one, we must wait a little while yet before I can go to you. For the reasons I told you of our marriage must be a secret one for the present, though this is very hard both on you and me. But I hope you are happy with Miss Webster, and I need not tell you that the moment I can do so with safety that I will join you, and then we can be married at once. Brighter days are, I am sure, in store for us, my Mayflower, but in the meantime when you write will you give your letters to Miss Webster to inclose to me, as it would not do for your letters to come here. Always devotedly yours, JOHN TEMPLE." CHAPTER XIX. THE BIG LETTER. A vague sense of disappointment stole into May Churchill's heart as she read this letter of John Temple's--a vague sense of disappointment and pain. He seemed so terribly afraid that people should talk about them, and then, her father--for the first time May felt remorse about her father--and began to realize that she might have caused him great anxiety. And her own position, too, unless they were to be married soon, would be very trying. John had said that in a fortnight at latest he would join her, but now he did not seem at all certain of this. Altogether the letter disturbed her exceedingly, and she was sitting still and silent in her own room, when kind Miss Eliza rapped at the door and put in her head. "My dear," she said, "our nephew Ralph wishes to know if you would like to go to one of the picture galleries this morning?" "I think not, Miss Eliza," answered May in a constrained voice. "Are you feeling tired?" now asked good Miss Eliza; "Ah, I was afraid you were doing too much." "I think I do feel a little tired, but it is nothing; only I should rather not go out this morning," said May, gently. "But please thank Mr. Webster for his kindness in offering to take me."