"That’s it," returned the father, "that’s the very thing he wrote about," and opening the letter a second time, he read that the fashionable and frivolous Mrs. Graham, worn out by a life of folly and dissipation, had died long before her time, and that the husband, warned by her example, wished to remove his daughter, a little girl eight years of age, from the city, or rather from the care of her maternal grandmother, who was sure to ruin her. It is true the letter was not exactly worded thus, but that was what it meant. Mr. Graham had once lived in Deerwood, and knew the old Marshall homestead well,—knew how invigorating were the breezes from the mountains,—how sweet the breath of the newly mown hay, or soil freshly plowed,—knew how bracing were the winter winds which howled around the farm-house,—how healthful the influences within, and when he decided to shut up his grand house and go to Europe for an indefinite length of time, his thoughts turned toward rustic Deerwood as a safe asylum for his child. In the gentle Mary Howland she would find a mother’s care, such as she had never known, and after a little hesitation, he wrote to know if at the deacon’s fireside there was room for Jessie Graham. "She is a wayward, high-spirited little thing," he wrote, "but warm-hearted, affectionate and truthful,—willing to confess her faults, though very apt to do the same thing again. If you take her, Mrs. Howland, treat her as if she were your own; punish her when she deserves it, and, in short, train her to be a healthy, useful woman." The price offered in return for all this was exceedingly liberal, and would have tempted the deacon had there been no other inducement. "That’s an enormous sum to pay for one little girl," he said, when he finished reading the letter. "It will send Ellen through the seminary, and maybe, buy her a piano, if she’s thinking she must have one to drum upon." "Piano!" repeated Walter. "I’ll earn one for her when she needs it. I don’t like this Jessie with her city airs. Don’t take her, Aunt Mary. We have suffered enough from the Grahams;" and Walter tossed his cap into the tree, with a low rejoinder, which sounded very much like "_darn ’em!_" "Walter," said the deacon, "you do wrong to cherish such feelings toward Mr. Graham. He only did what he thought was right, and were your father here now, he’d say Richard was the best friend he ever had." This was the place for Aunt Debby to put in her accustomed "Seth allus was a good boy," while Walter, not caring to discuss the matter, laughed good-humoredly, and said: "But that’s nothing to do with this minx of a Jessie. Why does he write her name s-i-e? Why don’t he spell it s-y-sy, and be sensible? Of course she’s as stuck up as she can be,—afraid of cows and snakes and everything," and Walter sneered at the idea of a girl who was afraid of snakes and everything.