doing well, and he bought me a new dress the other day at Miss Dinsmore's. She has got back from the city with the gayest flowers and ribbons. My dress is orange-colored. I don't fancy one quite so bright, and wear the old violet one you gave me oftener; but I can't exactly see why I don't like it, after all; for the very same color, on the breast of the Golden Oriole that builds a nest in our garden, I think is perfectly splendid. I hope you won't forget your loving little sister, "ANNIE BRAY." Sometimes she wrote less brightly and hopefully; but, oh, what a blessing it was to have her write at all! I found myself watching for those natural, loving words, for the acknowledgment of missing me, as, wearied after viewing Alpine peaks, one might stoop cheered and satisfied to pluck a tiny flower. Miss Darry never missed me. She discouraged the idea of a long autumn vacation, and offered to come to the city and board, that my work might still go on. I began to entertain serious doubts, if, when we were married, I should be suffered to live with her,--or whether she would not send me to boarding-school, or to pursue my studies abroad. When October came, with the rich sadness of its days, at once a prophecy of grief and an assurance of its soothing, I broke down utterly. My aesthetic and literary friends did not feel that sympathy for my worn-out body and soul which both demanded. I applied to the only legitimate source for aid in my weakness and the permission to yield to it; but before either arrived, Nature proved more than a match for Miss Darry, and sent me exhausted to bed. Miss Darry appeared the next morning, and if the whole breezy atmosphere of Hillside had clung to her garments, she could not have had a more bracing effect. How bright, loving, and gentle she was, when she found me really ill! To be sure, she prescribed vigorous tonics, as was in accordance with her style; in fact, she was one herself; but she relieved my weak and languid dejection by brilliant talk, when I could bear it,--by tender words of hope, when I could not. My late internal censures upon her, as a hard task-mistress, were now the ghosts of self-reproach, which a morbid condition conjured about my pillow; and the vision of her healthy, self-restrained nature presided over every dream, recalling most derisively Mr. Leopold's simile of the pine- and peach-trees.