"Dear Little Mother:--I am sorry that I must begin by asking your pardon for not having written for so long a time, but I am deeply thankful that my next words can be, that I have done well in every sense of the word. After the dull emptiness of the past, my life here comes like the opening of summer after a long winter of weariness and discontent. Day by day the influences that had grown up in the old life have been losing their place, and new interests coming into my heart that make me happier and stronger and better. I have written but few letters since the beginning of the year, and I cannot write much now, but I think you can understand much, perhaps all, of what I feel and would wish to say. But I can say, after the year that has passed since I left Hope Hall, that there are few months of my life that I can remember with more pleasure than those I spent there, and I have felt since leaving, that I there gained the strength I needed to help me start life anew. I shall always feel the influence of those months of close companionship with the men--each with a different story, and a different struggle, and, no matter where my life may be passed, or how dear the interests that may come into it, I shall always feel, when I think of Hope Hall, the tenderness one feels when thinking of an absent, well-loved friend." The following note was an acknowledgment of a special copy of the little Day Book sent to one of our "boys" shortly after his graduation. "Dear Little Mother:--I am more pleased than I can say for your remembrance of me and the delightful manner of this remembrance emphasizes itself in the gift. Every day as I read this precious little book I will think of the giver, and pray that God may grant unto you every good and perfect gift. I am now in the world and must fight my fight, but I know that that power which alone can subdue the enemy will be my strength and shield if I but walk circumspectly. I know too that the testimony of words will avail nothing, but that it is my life that must speak. In the selection of the evening portion for to-day I read, 'Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light.' I want my life to say this for me. Accept, dear Little Mother, the remembrance of a grateful heart and in the charity of your prayers remember me." To those who do not know the writers much behind the written words cannot be realized and I find myself saying, "After all what will these pages mean to the public?" To me they are unspeakably precious; they represent so many nights of prayer and anxious days, after the darkness of which they come as the touch of a rosy dawn; they remind me of tears to which they have brought the rainbow gleam of promise. I almost grudge them to other eyes and yet if by their words other hearts may be strengthened, their value will be doubled. VI UNWELCOMED HOME-COMING