"My dear kind friend," she said, now looking him full in the face; "if you really be a friend to me, wait until that young moon that is just rising, has run its course, before you come here again. There is a strange chaos in my mind. You would hardly understand it, if I were to try to explain, and unravel all its mysteries. They will unravel themselves in time, and then you may come for an answer to your question. A clear straight-forward answer. This is all I can give you for to-day." "It is more than I dared to hope; more than I deserve," he said, with deep emotion, and bent low to kiss the hand she had offered him as farewell, and so they parted. * * * * * Four weeks later, the same pale crescent that had lighted our yellow-haired young friend through the woods that evening, was shining in full refulgence upon a street of a great city, in the quarter chiefly inhabited by students and artists. Close to the open window of a small lodging on the third story, catching the last glimpse of fading light, a young man was seated before a great drawing board; with bold pencil drawing great broad sepia lines, to relieve with light and shade a correct and tasteful architectural ornament. His landlady came in with a letter in her hand. "From home;" she said, laid it down upon the table, and left the room again. The colour-box and drawing board were thrown aside, and in an instant, with trembling haste, he had broken the seal. The young artist seated himself upon the windowsill, and read as follows: "My dear spoiled boy! That we have been almost three weeks parted, is a fact I should find incredible, did I not know my almanack too well for reasonable disbelief. "There, the day of your departure has been branded with a thick black stroke, and the days on which your letters came, distinguished with bright red ones. It is a fact, for nineteen long days we have been deprived of our six-foot son, and for how much longer, is past all present reckoning. "I began several letters which I never finished. I knew that your father wrote, so that as for news, you were not starved. Anything more your little mother might have wished to say, though she certainly is no sentimental writer, would only have tended to make you homesick; and home is a thing with which, at present, you are to have nothing more to do. "I had the satisfaction of hearing by your last letter, that you find your new mode of life already becoming congenial to you; that your work absorbs you, and your comrades suit you. Here steps in maternal jealousy at once, and in terror of losing you altogether, I write this letter as reminder; also because I have a thing or two to tell you which may not be indifferent to you.