Here, wishing the doctor success in procuring patients, we leave them for a time, while we go back to Meadow Brook, where our house was one day thrown into a state of unusual excitement by the arrival of a letter from Aunt Charlotte, which contained an invitation for Anna and myself to spend the remainder of the autumn and the whole of the coming winter with her in the city. “Rosa,” she wrote, “could go to school, while Anna would be introduced into society.” Of course we were greatly surprised, wondering what had come over our haughty aunt, who, as the reader will recollect, once spent a Thanksgiving with us. She must have changed, we thought, or else there was some mistake about the invitation. But this could not be, for there it was in black and white, written evidently in all sincerity, while added to it was a postscript from Uncle Joseph, who also joined in the request. That, if nothing more, proved that the invitation was genuine, for there was no mistaking my uncle’s peculiar handwriting, and it only remained for us to decide whether we would accept or not. Anna and myself said “Yes,” at once, and after a grave deliberation in grandma’s room, the same conclusion was also reached by my parents, who, after giving us abundance of good advice, (not a word of which _I_ heard, as I was wondering if I should ever meet the doctor and Dell), enjoined it upon Anna, first, never to dance at the parties which she might sometimes attend; second, never to wear her dresses indecently low, as some of the city girls did; and third, not to flirt with Herbert Langley. For this last injunction they probably fancied there was little need, it being now five years since she had seen him, and as they knew nothing of the perfumed, gilt-edged notes which lay hidden in her work-box, they very naturally supposed she had forgotten him. I thought so, too, for hers was the last letter, which had been unanswered for many months, and Anna, I knew, was far too proud to care for one who had forgotten her. Occasionally we had heard of him through others, and it was always the same story, viz., that he was going down to a drunkard’s grave, as fast as daily drams and weekly sprees could carry him; but if these reports produced any effect upon Anna, it was imperceptible. She was now twenty years of age, and was a fair, delicate looking girl, whom some called _proud_, others _cold_, and a few _selfish_; but this last I deny, for though she might appear so to strangers, there was not in our whole family, if I except brother Charlie, one who would sacrifice more of their own comfort for that of another than would my sister Anna; neither was there one whom I loved better, for though she was six years my senior, she always treated me as one nearer her own age, while I looked up to her as my oracle, thinking that whatever she did must necessarily be right.