“You knew how proud my mother and sisters are, and it would surprise you to see them pet, and spoil, and fondle Willie, who rules the entire household; mother even allowing him to bring wheel-barrow, drum, and trumpet into the parlor, declaring that she likes the noise, as it stirs up her blood. Willie has made a vast change in our once quiet home, and I fear I shall meet with much opposition when I take him away, as I expect to do next month, for Lily gave him to me, and brother John has said that I may have him until the mother is found, while Charlie is perfectly willing; and thus, you see, my cup of joy is full. “Brother is away now, searching for Adah, and I am wicked enough not to miss him, so busy am I in the few preparations needed by the wife of a poor missionary.” Then, in a postscript, Anna added: “I forgot to tell you that Charlie and I are to be married some time in July, that the Presbyterian Society of Snowdon have given him a call to be their pastor, that he has accepted, and what is best of all, has actually rented your old home for us to live in. Oh, I am so happy; I do not feel like an old maid of thirty-three, and Charlie flatters me by saying I have certainly gone back in looks to twenty. Perhaps I have, but it all comes of happiness and a heart full of thankfulness to our good Father who has so greatly blessed me.” With a smile, Alice finished the childlike letter, so much like Anna. Then feeling that Mrs. Worthington would be glad to hear from Willie, she went in quest of her, finding her at the end of the long piazza, listening while Hugh read the sympathetic letter received from Irving Stanley. From the doctor, whom he accidentally met on Broadway, Irving had heard of ’Lina’s death, and he wrote at once to Mrs. Worthington, expressing his sympathy for her own and Hugh’s bereavement; thus showing that the Dr. had only told him a part of the sad story, withholding all that concerned Adah, who was evidently a stranger to Irving Stanley. His sister, Mrs. Ellsworth, was well, he wrote, though very busy with her preparations for going to Europe, whither he intended accompanying her, adding “it was not so much pleasure which was taking her there, as the hope that by some of the Paris physicians her little deformed Jennie might be benefitted. She had secured a gem of a governess for her daughter, a young lady whom he had not yet seen, but over whose beauty and accomplishments his staid sister Carrie had really waxed eloquent.” The letter closed by asking if Hugh were still at home or had he joined the army. “Oh-h,” and Alice’s cheek grew pale at the very idea of Hugh’s putting himself in so much danger, for Hugh was very dear to her now. His noble, unselfish devotion to ’Lina had finished the work begun on that memorable night when she had said to him, “I may learn to love you,” and more than once as she watched with him by ’Lina’s bedside, she had been tempted to wind her arm around his neck and whisper in his ear,