“‘Do as you think best about returning, though you are too young to realize how a person can miss any one, or to decide important questions. Whatever you do, never let on to your great-aunt that I wrote; she would kill me and never forgive me. “‘Hoping that you will see all that I could not make you see, I remain, “‘Your true friend, “‘LYDIA TAPPAN. “‘P. S.--Your cat, Tabby, is well. She has a yellow kitten. You asked to have it saved, if there was one, so your aunt kept it, though you don’t mean to come home.’” There was silence as Beth folded up her letter with hands that would tremble. She looked around the table, at the faces which she had learned to love so well, with trouble, but no tears in her gentle eyes. “Oh, well,” said Uncle Jim, shaking off the impression which the letter had made, in spite of its funny phrases and confused thought. “After all your true friend, Lydia Tappan, says your great-aunt is not ill. We knew that she must miss you. You can write this person, who has to do with garments, that it is all settled that you are to stay with us.” Beth shook her head. “I don’t see how I could, Uncle Jim,” she said. “Oh, Bethie dear, I’m not sure that it is your duty to return, really, and not wholly selfishly!” cried Aunt Alida. “This may be a friendly exaggeration of your Aunt Rebecca’s natural loneliness. As your uncle says, Miss Tappan states plainly that she is not ill.” “Say, you don’t mean that you think of going!” cried Dirk, too disgusted to say more. “You are _not_ going and that settles it,” declared Alys. “You’re ours for keeps, Bethikins, so what’s the use?” added Natalie, disposing of the question once for all. Beth looked at them imploringly. “I’ve got to go,” she said, and instantly Aunt Alida recognized the immovable decision that lay behind the words and in Beth’s childish face. “Well, of all----” began Natalie. “You can’t go, Beth,” said Mr. Cortlandt at the same moment. Beth held up the hand that wore the prince’s ring, the insignia of the Order of the Strong Hearted. “Don’t you remember what we are to do always?” she asked. “We have to choose what we ought to do, not what we want to do. He said that was the meaning of the Order; we promised that when we joined it. I’m the first one who has had to choose anything much since the prince founded the Order. Wouldn’t it be awful if I failed? And wouldn’t you go home, if any one had taken care of you for years and years, all your life, and was pining? Even if you didn’t belong to an Order? It’s dreadful to pine. A girl at home pined so when her mother died that she went into quick consumption and died too. Of course I must go home. I’ll write Miss Tappan not to tell Aunt Rebecca I’m coming; then I’ll surprise her. Probably that’ll do her more good. When can I go, Uncle Jim? You wouldn’t have to send Anna Mary to take me back, would you?”