Four days later Ida was lying one morning on a wicker-work lounge on the front porch of Mr. Leverton's cottage, when the man employed to take care of the horses returned from a trip to the post-office, and handed her a letter. [Illustration: ARRIVAL OF AUNT STINA'S LETTER.] Ida took it listlessly. She had not felt well since the night before; her head had ached; she had pains in her limbs, and felt dull and sleepy. "From Aunt Stina," she said to Angela, who sat near her, reading. "She writes from Paris," she added, as she tore the letter open. "Read me anything very interesting," said Angela. "I hope she tells about the Paris fashions." But Ida read down to the bottom of the first page without communicating a word of its contents. Then suddenly she gave a sigh that was almost a sob, and covered her face with her hands. "Why, Ida! what is the matter?" Angela threw down her book and flew to the side of the lounge. "I can't tell you--don't ask me," said Ida, in a smothered voice. "Is your Aunt Stina ill?" "Oh, no; it isn't that. It is only-- Oh, Angela, I have been so ungrateful, so unkind; I--" she broke off, sobbing, the letter crushed in her hand. "In what way have you been ungrateful and unkind? I don't understand you at all. In fact, Ida, you're not at all like you were last spring. I have been noticing it ever since you came here to visit us. I don't know how to describe it; but you're altogether changed!" Ida sobbed on. It was that first page of her Aunt Stina's letter which had affected her so powerfully. It ran as follows: "I must decline to accept your thanks for the box you received early in July. I do not deserve any credit whatever. Your sister wrote me that you needed the dress, and enclosed thirty dollars from your Aunt Patty, which I was directed to spend for you as I saw fit. Cynthia requested me not to write you that they had arranged the surprise for you. I suppose they did not wish you to be burdened with a debt of gratitude. But after this length of time it can do no harm for you to learn that your Aunt Patty and not I bore the expense of your outfit for Mrs. Lennox's lawn party." So that was how Aunt Patty had spent the money she had received for the yellow heifer. What wonder that Ida, remembering what she had said about her aunt's shabby clothes, should be overwhelmed with contrition now? "Ida," said Angela, after regarding her friend in silence a few moments, "I do believe you caught the fever from that woman tramp you insisted on taking into Edgerton." "I deserve to be punished in some way," said Ida. "Not for my interest in that poor sick woman," she added, as Angela stared at her with an expression of surprise, "but for various offences. I have been selfish, inconsiderate, deceitful, and unkind." "Ida, you are certainly going to be ill," said Angela. "I never heard you talk that way before."