All these memories glanced through her mind as she hurried home. She reflected too, that the present transitional and contradictory state of the domestic world was further indicated by the fact that though her sister, Mrs. Brand, held all their mother’s household theories, yet their mother would have disapproved far more of the Brand _ménage_ than she would of Lucy’s household, as that had been conducted during the seven years of Pollie’s service. Surely this went to show that the desirable results of the old order of things were now best to be secured under the new order! Lucy said to herself— “Well, I must be patient, and remember that my own position is rather exceptional. Domestic life, just now, seems to be of the nature of a series of experiments, while I stand at too critical a corner to find such experiments edifying or pleasant. I must do what everybody has to do—from prime ministers down to chimney-sweeps—make the best of the bad job left by those who have gone before me, and try my utmost not to make it worse for those coming after me!” She entered her home, tired enough, and knowing that there could be no rest till bedtime. But she had made up her mind to be cheerful at all costs. Lo, on the hall-table lay something which made overflowing joy to be the easiest thing possible. There was a letter from Charlie! It was marked “Ship letter,” and the last few lines (which in her bewildered joy she read first) had evidently been written in wild haste: “Homeward bound ship in sight—passing close by—Grant thinks opportunity for letter. God bless and keep you.—CHARLIE.” “God bless and keep you!” The benediction folded her round. She was no more tired, no more disheartened. She was ready for anything! And how much more so after she had read the whole letter! All was going well. The weather had been so propitious that Charlie had been able to be on deck nearly all day. He had grown so brown and plump that he scarcely knew his own face in the cabin looking-glass. It was a guarantee of the calm weather and of his own strength to enjoy it that his diary recorded that he and Captain Grant had played chess every night, and that their games were becoming prolonged and scientific. When Miss Latimer had joined in the rejoicing, when Hugh had had his father’s letter to kiss, when the cat had had it to sniff—and had been decided to show much more interest and emotion than when the performance was repeated with a circular—when Lucy had written a postcard to hurry after the letter she had just sent to her husband—an ecstatic postcard, “Your ship letter received. Oh, so happy—so thankful to God!”—when all these things were done, then she turned back to her household cares and burdens, strong enough to bear the heaviest.