She did not know how long she sat on that hard chair in the ugly room that night. She only knew how valiantly she struggled to stifle the sobs that wrenched her slight body. Early in the evening she had heard a soft impact against her door, which she knew meant that the watchdog was in his place. Her kerosene lamp was burning low, when again a slight sound against her door made her look that way apprehensively and wish that she had barricaded it as on the night before. Something white caught her eye. It was paper being slowly pushed beneath the door and now an envelope was revealed. Geraldine started up and noiselessly crept toward it. Seizing it she carried it to the light. It was a letter addressed to herself: _Miss Geraldine Melody_ And down in the left-hand corner were the words--_"Kindness of Mr. Barry."_ Across the face of the envelope was scrawled in another hand these words: "Courage. Walk in meadow. Wear white." Geraldine stared at this with her swollen eyes, the aftermath of her wild weeping causing convulsive catches in her throat which she stifled automatically. Turning the envelope over she saw that it was sealed clumsily with red wax. Running a hairpin through the flap she opened it and took out the letter with trembling hands. This is what she read: DEAR MISS MELODY: I can't help worrying about you, not knowing what you found when you got to the farm, and whether Mr. Carder and his mother turned out to be the kind you like to live with. I've wished a hundred times that I'd brought you home with me instead of letting you go, because, after all the hard experiences you went through, I wanted to be sure that you found care and protection where you was going. I'm poor and have only a small place, but I'd have found some way to take care of you.