You will see by its date how many days ago the first part of this letter was written. I kept it back till the cruel suspense of your sister's sudden relapse was ended--thinking it a pity your mind should be burthened with any additional care. You have had, in the meantime, the daily bulletin from Treherne Court--the daily line from me. How are you, my child?--for you have forgotten to say. Any roses out on your poor cheeks? Look in the glass and tell me. I must know, or I must come and see. Remember, your life is a part of mine, now. Mrs. Treherne is convalescent--as you know. I saw her on Monday for the first time. She is changed, certainly; it will be long before she is anything like the Lisabel Johnston of my recollection, full of health and physical enjoyment. But do not grieve. Sometimes, to have gone near the gates of death, and returned, hallows the whole future life. I thought, as I left her, lying contentedly on her sofa, with her hand in her husband's, who sits watching as if truly she were given back to him from the grave, that it may be good for those two to have been so nearly parted. It may teach them, according to a line you once repeated to me (you see, though I am not poetical, I remember all your bits of poetry), to= ````"hold every mortal joy ```With a loose hand."= since nothing finite is safe, unless overshadowed by the belief in, and the glory of, the Infinite. My dearest--my best of every earthly thing--whom to be parted from temporarily, as now often makes me feel as if half myself were wanting--whom to lose out of this world would be a loss irremediable, and to leave behind in it would be the sharpest sting of death--better, I have sometimes thought, of late--better be you and I than Treherne and Lisabel. In all these letters I have scarcely mentioned Penelope--you see I am learning to name your sisters as if mine. She, however, has treated me almost like a stranger in the few times we happened to meet--until last Monday. I had left the happy group in the library--Treherne, tearing himself from his wife's sofa--honest fellow! to follow me to the door--where he wrung my hand, and said, with a sob like a school-boy, that he had never been so happy in his life before, and he hoped he was thankful for it. Your eldest sister, who sat in the window sewing--her figure put me somewhat in mind of you, little lady--bade me good-bye--she was going back to Rockmount in a few days. I quitted them, and walked alone across the park, where the chestnut-trees--you remember them--are beginning, not only to change, but to fall; thinking how fast the years go, and how little there is in them of positive joy. Wrong--this!--and I know it; but, my love, I sin sorely at times. I nearly forgot a small patient I have at the lodge-gates, who is slipping so gradually, but surely, poor wee man! into the world where he will be a child for ever. After sitting with him half an hour, I came out better.