“I don’t know. Every thing seems changed to me of late. I am bewildered. It seems to me as though I had lost myself. Since that letter came I doubt my powers more than ever. To think of one in my situation having to _practice_ before I can work successfully! There is little time to practice, I think, when eight human beings are wondering where their next meal is to come from—when their wood-yard is in such a state of depression and emptiness as ours is!” The mother sighed heavily as Lily said this, but did not speak. “But you certainly can do something here,” I cried. “Don’t go and bury yourself in the back-woods. I’m sure you can be a teacher in our school if you’ll only ask. It’s perfectly wild in you to think of going this winter! traveling, you know, at this time of year is a very costly business, dear Lily, besides being so cheerless!” “There is no use talking about it; I should have loved to live here, for my own part, all my life, but I have engaged a school in the town we are going to, and they wish it to be opened early in the spring. There’s no help for it—we must go.” And they went. From that day until within a few months I heard nothing in regard to the Reeve Family. Lily had promised to tell us her experience in the west, of her success in this new attempt at securing a livelihood; but her promise was unfulfilled, and we could not but fear lest despondency had utterly crushed all the aspirations of her genius, that if she yet lived, poverty and hopelessness had come to be her only portion. Still, though her name had never reached us through the medium talents like hers choose for their utterance—the press—there was always with me a lingering hope and belief that Lily had, under some assumed name, made herself famous. Knowing so well her ability, the more I thought of this the more I became strongly convinced that it was so. At last, when I had dreamed of her night after night, and thought much of her in my waking hours, it became absolutely necessary to my own peace of mind that I should write to her once more—a thing I had not done in many years—in order to discover if she were actually dead or alive—famous or unknown to the world. It was with much anxiety, as all my lady readers will believe, I awaited her reply—for an answer I felt convinced I should receive. It came at last; and as people such as she are regarded by the world as a species of public property, as regards their thoughts, words, and deeds, I have little scruples in laying Lily’s epistle open for public inspection, knowing that her words will awaken the hope and renewed efforts of the despairing, and excite the admiration and commendation of all good people.