“The last time Anna was out with me before her sickness, she saw and greatly admired an oil painting from a scene among the mountains of the Tyrol. It reminded her, she said, of New England, and the view from the hill across the river in Millfield. Recently I have seen the picture again, and remembering that she said, ‘Oh, how I wish mother and Mary could see it,’ I purchased it, and yesterday it started for America, marked to your address. In the same box is a porcelain picture of Murillo’s Madonna (the one in the Louvre gallery), and I send it because it bears a strong resemblance to Anna, as I have seen her in her white dressing-gown, with her hair unbound, her hands folded upon her breast, and her sweet face upturned to the evening sky, which she loved to contemplate, because, she said, ‘the same moon and stars were shining down on you.’ I hope you will like them, and accept them as coming—the painting from Anna, and the Madonna from me. Should you ever be in need of money, I beg you will command me to any extent, for I desire to be to you a son for the sake of the daughter I have taken from you. “‘As I may not be in Paris the entire winter, direct to Munroe & Co., and your letters will be forwarded. Very truly, dear madame, yours, “‘ERNEST HAVERLEIGH.’ “This was the letter received at the red house that Thanksgiving day, and for a time the mother and sister felt that Anna was as surely lost to them as if she had been lying dead in some far-off grave across the sea. There was no insanity in the family on either side that Mrs. Strong had ever heard of, and that gave them a little hope, but their hearts were aching with a bitter pain as they sat down to the dinner which was scarcely touched, so intent were they upon the sorrow which had come so suddenly. It was terrible to think of their beautiful Anna as a maniac, confined behind bars and bolts, and so far away from home. “‘If we could only see her,’ Mary said, while Fred suggested going to France himself to find her if she did not recover soon. “‘Where is she? Where did Mr. Haverleigh say the asylum was?’ he asked, and then reference was had to the letter, but the name of the place was wholly unintelligible, and after trying in vain to make it out, they gave it up and gathered what comfort they could from the apparent kindness and cordiality evinced in Mr. Haverleigh’s letter, so different from his cold, proud manner when there, Mrs. Strong remarked, and she felt her love go out toward him as to a son, and before she slept that night she wrote him a long letter, which contained many messages of love for poor Anna, and thanks to himself for his kindness and interest in her sorrowing family.