For months Mrs. La Rue’s remedy for nervousness had been morphine, which she took in constantly increasing doses, and she had resort to it now, and, swallowing half a grain, grew calm at last, and read her agent’s letter; and then picking up the dainty note with Reinette’s monogram upon the seal, kissed it passionately, and cried over it as if it had been some living creature instead of a bit of perfumed paper, on which these lines were written: “HETHERTON PLACE, “MERRIVALE, Worcester Co., Mass., U. S. A. “MY DEAR CHRISTINE:—Have you forgotten the little baby you used to bear in your arms years ago, in Paris and at Chateau des Fleurs? Little Queenie they called me, though my real name was Reinette, and I am the daughter of Mrs. Frederick Hetherton, who died in Rome, and to whom you were so kind. I have it in mother’s letter written to father, in which she tells him how good and true you were to her and bade him always be kind to you for her sake. And I think he tried to be, for I have ascertained that he set apart a certain amount of money for you, which was all very well, though I should have shown my gratitude in an altogether different way. I might have given you money if you needed it, but I should also have made you come home to us, and should have loved and petted you because you knew my mother, and were so good to her. And that is what I wish to do now. “Papa is dead, as you perhaps know. He died on the ship before we reached New York, and I am living alone at Hetherton Place, his old home, which is almost as lovely as Chateau des Fleurs, with a much finer view. Christine, did you know my mother was an American? She was, and her home was here in Merrivale, where my father found her and where I have a host of relatives on her side. But still I am very, very lonely, and I want you to come and live with me in America. I will try and make you so happy, and you will seem to bring me nearer to my mother, for you will tell me of her; what she did and what she said of me the few days she had me before she died. I am sure to love you because she did, and in her first letters to her mother and sister after she reached Paris she spoke of her good Christine, who was so much to her. “You see I am writing on the assumption that you have no other ties. I always think of you as my dear old nurse, Christine, whom I sometimes fancy I can remember. Did you not come to me once in the Bois when another nurse had charge of me, and kiss, and cry over me, and give me a quantity of bon-bons? Some such scene comes up to me from the misty past, and you had such bright black eyes and so much color in your cheeks, and looked so pretty. Was that you, and why did you not stay with me always? Write immediately and answer all these questions, and tell me you will come to your loving