“Good afternoon, Mr. Clark,” she said to the clerk importantly. “Grandma sends her respecks and wants to know ef you’d be so kind as to back this letter fer her to Mr. David Spafford. She’s writin’ to him on business an’ she don’t rightly know his street an’ number in New York.” Mr. Clark willingly wrote the address, and Miranda took it to the post office, and sped back to Marcia, happy in the accomplishment of her purpose. In the same mail bag that brought Miranda’s package came a letter from Aunt Clarinda. David’s face lit up with a pleased smile. Her letters were so infrequent that they were a rare pleasure. He put aside the thick package written in his clerk’s hand. It was doubtless some business papers and could wait. Aunt Clarinda wrote in a fine old script that in spite of her eighty years was clear and legible. She told about the beauty of the weather, and how Amelia and Hortense were almost done with the house cleaning, and how Marcia had been going to their house every day putting it in order. Then she added a paragraph which David, knowing the old lady well, understood to be the _raison d’être_ of the whole letter: “I think your wife misses you very much, Davie, she looks sort of peeked and sad. It is hard on her being separated from you so long this first year. Men don’t think of those things, but it is lonely for a young thing like her here with three old women, and you know Hortense and Amelia never try to make it lively for anybody. I have been watching her, and I think if I were you I would let the business finish itself up as soon as possible and hurry back to put a bit of cheer into that child. She’s whiter than she ought to be.” David read it over three times in astonishment with growing, mingled feelings which he could not quite analyze.