“Pastor sick!” She gasped the words aloud; then, turning swiftly to her mother’s letter, she cried: “Momma will tell more than this!” Her eyes raced over the written lines. Her mother said a little more than her father had done about the sickness of their friend and pastor; not much, though, in actual words, but to the disturbed heart of the young girl there seemed to her much deeper meaning. An excited trembling came upon her for a few moments. The next instant she had put a strong curb upon herself, and, folding the letters, and replacing them in the envelope, she cried out quietly, but sharply: “The boat from Southampton sails at two to-day. I’ll catch that!” The next instant she was divesting herself of her hat and jacket, and began to set about her packing. Now and again she talked to herself thus: “Sick, is he? Poor old pastor! I guess I know what’s the matter with him, and I’ll put him right in five minutes.” She smiled as she went on: “I guess, too, I’ve found out what’s the matter with me—I want to be a pastor’s wife!” The next instant her voice was carolling out: “For I tell them they need not come wooing of me, For my heart, my heart, is over the sea.” Her fingers were busy, her mind all the time kept mentally arranging a host of things. “I wonder,” she murmured presently, “how Uncle Archibald and George will take my sudden departure? Well, I’m glad George is out of town. He’s been showing signs of spoons lately with me, so it’s best, perhaps, that I should get off without seeing him.” * * * * * By eleven that forenoon she had left Waterloo. Her uncle had seen her off from the station. He wanted to accompany her to Southampton, but she would not hear of it. “I want to be very quiet all the way down,” she said, “and write some important letters. Make my excuses to everybody, and explain that I only had an hour or two to do everything.” At the last moment her uncle slipped an envelope into her hand, saying, “You are not to open it until you have been travelling a quarter of an hour.” Then came the good-byes, and—off. She had been travelling _nearly_ a quarter of an hour when she opened the envelope. There was a brief, hearty, loving note inside, in her uncle’s hand-writing, expressing the joy her visit had given him, and his sense of loneliness at her going, and saying: “Please, dear Madge, accept the enclosure in second envelope, as a souvenir of your visit, from your affectionate “NUNKUMS.” She opened the smaller envelope. To her breathless amazement, she found a Bank of England note for £1,000. When she recovered herself a little, a smile filled her eyes as she murmured: “Fancy an American Methodist pastor’s wife with a thousand pounds of her own! My!”