Yours, in sorrow and sympathy, “DARINDA CLEAVER.” As I read this strange epistle, I felt as if turning into stone, and had my life depended upon it I could not have shed a tear for the lover dead and the ruin of all my hopes. Indeed, in looking back upon the past, I do not think I ever _really_ cried for _Archie_, though for weeks and months there was a heavy pain in my heart, a sense of loss and loneliness, and disappointment, but often, as I felt the hot tears start, there came the recollection that I had not been his first choice, if indeed I were ever his choice at all; that it was probably in a fit of pique he had asked me to be his wife, and this forced the tears down and made me harder, stonier than before. I sent his picture back that very day, and with it my engagement ring, a splendid solitaire, which I reflected with bitterness would some day sparkle on Lady Darinda’s finger, and it did. I did not write a word. I could not. I merely sent the ring and the picture, and felt when I gave them to Aunt Esther that my old life was ended and a new one just begun. “Tom’s letter you have not read yet. That may comfort you. I’ll bring it directly,” Aunt Esther said: and in a moment I had it in my hand and was studying the superscription: “MISS NORAH BURTON, “The Oaks, “Middlesex. “Not to be opened till the wedding-day.” Then for a moment there was a feeling in my throat as if my heart were rising into my mouth, but I forced it down, and breaking the seal, read the letter, which was so much like Tom. He had been out to sea three days, and there was a ship in sight by which they hoped to send messages home, so he was trying to write in spite of the fearful condition of his stomach, which he described as a kind of raging whirlpool.