When Joe received the intelligence her satisfaction knew no bounds, for although she had guessed that the climax of the affair was not far off, she had not expected it so very soon. Had she searched through the whole of her acquaintance at home and in America she could have found no one whom she considered more fit to be Ronald's wife, and that alone was enough to make her very happy; but the sensation of freedom from all further responsibility to Ronald, and the consciousness that every possible good result had followed upon her action, added so much to her pleasure in the matter, that for a time she utterly forgot herself and her own troubles. She instantly wrote a long and sympathetic letter to Ronald, and another to Sybil. Sybil replied at once, begging Joe to come and spend a month at Sherwood, or as much time as she was able to give. "I expect you had best go," remarked Miss Schenectady. "It is getting pretty hot here, and you look quite sick." "Oh no, I am very well," said Joe; "but I think I will go for a week or ten days." "Well, if you find you are going to have a good time, you can always stay, any way," replied the old lady. "I think if I were you I would take some books and a Bible and a pair of old boots." Miss Schenectady did not smile, but Joe laughed outright. "A Bible and a pair of old boots!" she cried. "Yes, I would," said her aunt. "Old Tom Sherwood cannot have seen a Bible for fifty years, I expect, and it might sort of freshen him up." The old lady's eye twinkled slightly and the corners of her mouth twitched a little. "As for the old boots, if you conclude to go, you will want them, for you will be right out in the country there." Joe laughed again, but she took her aunt's advice; and on the following day she reached Newport, and was met by Sybil and Ronald, who conveyed her to Sherwood in a thing which Joe learned was called a "carryall." Late in the afternoon, when Ronald was gone, the two girls sat in an angle of the old walls, looking over the sea to eastward. The glow of the setting sun behind them touched them softly, and threw a rosy color upon Joe's pale face, and gilded Sybil's bright hair, hovering about her brows in a halo of radiant glory. Joe looked at her and wondered at the change love had wrought in so short a time. Sybil had once seemed so cold and white that only a nun's veil could be a fit thing to bind upon her saintly head; but now the orange blossoms would look better there, Joe thought, twined in a bride's wreath of white and green, of purity and hope. "My Snow Angel," she exclaimed, "the sun has melted you at last!" "Tell me the story of the Snow Angel," said Sybil, smiling. "You once said that you would." "I will tell you," said Joe, "as well I can remember it. Mamma used to tell it to me years and years ago, when I was quite a small thing. It is a pretty story. Listen."