"I wonder if you are enjoying your triumph half as much as I? But how should you, since you do not know of it? Your publishers inform me that orders are pouring in for your book faster than they can supply them. What do you think of that? 'Floy,' you have made a decided hit; how lucky that you had the foresight to hold on to your copyright. $800 will not be a circumstance to the little fortune you are going to make. Your success is glorious; but I don't believe you are half as proud of it as I am. "And now, I know of what you are thinking as well as if I were by your side. 'Tis of the little exile, 'tis of Katy. You would fly directly to bring her home. Can I be of any service to you in doing this? Business takes me your way day after to-morrow. Can you curb your impatience to see her till then? If so, I will accompany you. Please write me immediately. "Yours truly, JOHN WALTER. "P. S.--I send you a batch of letters, which came by this morning's mail, directed to 'Floy,' office of the Household Messenger." Ruth tossed the "batch of letters" down unopened, and sprang to her feet; she tossed up Nettie; she kissed the astonished child till she was half strangled; she laughed, she cried, and then she sat down with her forehead in both her hands, for a prolonged reverie. What _good_ news about the book! How could she wait two days before she brought back Katy! And yet it would be a happy thing, that Mr. Walter, whose name was synonymous with good tidings, should be associated with her in the return of the child. Yes, she would wait. And when Katy _was_ secured, what then? Why, she would leave forever a city fraught with such painful associations; she would make her a new home. Home? Her heart leaped!--comforts for Nettie and Katy,--clothes--food,--earned by her own hands!--Tears trickled through Ruth's fingers, and her heart went out in a murmured prayer to the "God of the widow and fatherless." "May I play house with these?" said Nettie, touching Ruth's elbow, and pointing to the unopened letters. "No, little puss," said Ruth, "not yet. Wait a bit till I have glanced at them;" and she broke the seal of one. It was an offer of marriage from a widower. He had read an article of hers on "Step-Mothers," and was "very sure that a woman with _such_ views could not fail to make a good mother for his children." He was thirty-five--good-looking, (every man who had written her a love-letter _was_!) good disposition--warm-hearted--would love her just as well as if he had never bent an adoring knee to Mrs. Dorrance No. 1--was not at all set in his ways--in fact preferred she should, in everything, save him the trouble of _choice_; would live in any part of the Union she desired, provided she would only consent to _the union_. These last two words Mr. Dorrance had italicised, as indicating, probably, that he considered it a pun fit even for the critical eye of an authoress.