"Now, Janey," she said, as she went out into the kitchen; "I'll write that letter for you before you wash the dishes or anything; because Mr. Charlie wants me to go to ride with him, as soon as I can." And she seated herself at the table, while Janey went after her writing materials. "How you done like my paper, Miss Allie?" the girl asked proudly, as she laid upon the table a sheet of vivid, rose-colored paper, and its accompanying envelope, which brought with them an aggressive fragrance of musk. Then she dropped down on the floor behind her young mistress, coiling herself up in the corner, with her back against the wall, that she might dictate at her ease. "My dear frien'," she began slowly, and with the air of searching her mind for properly sonorous phrases; "I have done receive your letter, an' I take my pen in han' to now reply. I was very glad to know dat you is well, an' I am sorry to say I am not; I think I have de consumption"-- "Why, Janey," interposed Allie; "what do you mean? Aren't you well?" "Yes, I's well enough," answered Janey, as she shot a sudden mischievous glance from the corners of her downcast eyes; "but I reckon he'll think more of me, ef he thinks I's goin' to die. I am not very happy," she resumed, in the same stilted tone as before; "an' las' night you came to me in a dream, an' tol' me you was dead. I done specks he'll cry like everything, when he reads dat," she interpolated, with a nod of triumph. "Sometimes I reckon we sha'n' never see each other no mo'; but you mus' never forget your Janey. Um-mm," she went on, in an inarticulate mumble. "What?" inquired Allie, pausing, with her pen in mid air, as she turned around to see Janey with her cap off, a row of hair-pins between her lips, and a pair of gleaming scissors raised to one of her woolly tails. There was a sudden sound of snipping steel, and then Janey continued,-- "I sen' you a plat of my hair, an' I wants you to sen' me one of yours; an'--an--'" Janey hesitated, while she put on her cap once more. "Well, what next?" asked Allie, secretly wondering, as she glanced at the sable tress before her, why each could not retain his own hair, since the two locks would probably be so much alike that only the keen eye of an expert or a lover could distinguish between them. "So no mo' now," dictated Janey. "Give my love to Emma Digson, an' Joe Harrison, an' my mother, an' tell little Bill he mus' be a good boy, an' tell Sarah Johnson"--Here followed a list of greetings and messages, as long as those at the end of the Pauline epistles. Allie was still toiling her way through them, making conscientious attempts to discover the proper spelling of names, when she heard the front door open and shut. A moment later, Howard appeared in the kitchen, very pale and with trembling lips. "Come here a minute, Allie," he said, in a tone of command so unlike his usual manner that his sister started up at the first word.