I'm mighty glad to say something about this affair to some one who can understand me. Imagine my feelings when, out of the blue, as one might say, Lans brought this girl home and said, "I'm going to leave her with you, Aunt Olive, until I can see my way clear. I am brother to her and she is sister to me until--the way's made plain." That was all and then Lans betook himself to his old quarters and began to work. He's taken a position on the _Boston Beacon_ and calls, actually _calls_, on his wife evenings or takes her and me out to theatres and dinners. I'm supposed to be training this young woman, for what, heaven only knows! but I have my hands full. Lans was always erratic and poetic, but this is beyond my comprehension, He has had affairs of the heart, of course, but this is different. The girl is the strangest creature I ever saw; she is uncanny. After I got her into proper clothing I saw she had beauty and charm of a certain kind. She takes to ways and expressions mighty quick, and she is the sweet appealing kind that attracts even while one disapproves. I confess I am utterly dumb-founded and if you can throw any light on this matter, pray do so. The girl seems to me to be half here and half somewhere else; she isn't unhappy, and she seems to adore Lans in a detached and pretty childish way, but why did he marry her and why should he, having married her, regard her in this platonic fashion? Of course Matilda could not answer these questions but she cried over the letter a great deal and brooded over Sandy with all the motherhood that nature had not legitimately utilized. And then, one night, Sandy came to her quite simply and directly and claimed, in his great suffering need, what she alone had to give. It was the week before Christmas. The cabin was gay and festive, for Marcia Lowe, in a lavishness of good cheer, had decorated everything she could command beginning with the little chapel and ending with the post-office. The County Club sat now 'neath an arbour of greens, and the lowliest cabin had its spray of pine or holly.