“Time sped on, working his changes as he ever does, and our school-days passed like our girlhood, never to return. Florence and I made every promise of everlasting friendship when we parted; kept, too, I believe as faithfully as if made in more mature years. The first letter I received from her after we had both left for our homes, told me of the death of her father, which was very sudden. The newspapers announced shortly after this, the demise of her remaining parent, and my heart clung still more fondly to her, poor thing, for she had no brothers or sisters to sympathize with her in this sad bereavement. She was now alone to struggle with the cold world, which made no allowance for her faults of the head, but were visited upon her as crimes of a darker die. “Years elapsed, and nothing more reached me of Florence. I married your uncle, dear Cora, and spent many, many happy years with him _here_, in my little nest as you term it, when death also came to tear him from me. Then, too, with my sorrow, came the oftener thoughts of my girl-friend, Florence Walton. Wondering had she ever married—was she a mother, a widow—and still above all came the wish that I could see her once again. I had written to her frequently, but my letters were never answered, and so I began to imagine that time had blotted out _my_ name from ‘memory’s page,’ or that she had gone forth into the world under some other cognomen, and that my letters had failed to reach her. Somehow, I could never think her dead, there was too much life and liveliness in my ideal of her, to join them together. “Other thoughts began to have influence over me, when one day among letters and papers, came one, bearing my name in her own hand-writing! That old, familiar penmanship brought back, like some fondly remembered strain of music, thoughts of childhood’s happy days, and my heart leaped forth in love welcome to the writer ere I broke the envelope. How much more were my feelings stirred within me, when the warm, passionate nature of Florence beamed forth in every line. She proffered a visit to me, telling me, that she too had known sorrow, deep, lasting—and when she thought of my happiness, she could not bear to lay open the still tender wound; but I had suffered, as she had very recently learned, and could therefore without additional heart-pangs give my sympathy to a friend, my own, old, wayward, school-friend.” “How quickly did I respond, and urge her to come speedily, and she came.” “Yes, dear aunty,” said Cora, “I recollect her now. I was a tiny one, it is true, but I remember well a lady, who dressed in mourning, and was accustomed to walk evening after evening up and down the broad portico with you, while I, too, would endeavor to keep pace with you, till tired out I have thrown myself across the door-step and slept, unconsciously, until you became aware of ‘my small existence,’ and gave me to Elsie, to put in bed.”