“But I am in a fever of anxiety about you. I will not distress you by a lot of vague suspicions that are rising in my mind to torture me; but I beg of you, my beautiful gentle love, to let me know every little event that happens at the Alders. I pray Heaven you may have very little to tell. And now I entreat you to comply with this my earnest, solemn request. Don’t trust your letters to any one to post--don’t even post them yourself--but give them to my youngest sister, to send on to me. She teaches in the Sunday-school. Get Mrs. Manners to send you up to the Hall on some pretext on Sunday; get Maud alone, and you will find she will do what you ask. Tell her to remember her last promise to me in the conservatory, and I’ll remember mine. “Keep this letter where no one can get at it--not in a desk--if you don’t tear it up. I feel already such a hunger for a sight of your sweet face--I can’t think of the touch of your little clinging hands about my throat without the tears rising to my eyes. I think I must jump into the sea if I cannot find some means of getting back to you sooner. Good-by; Heaven bless you! Write to me; don’t forget. Keep safe and well, till you are once again in the arms of “Yours devotedly for ever and ever, “Laurence.” It was new life to me, it was heart-felt unutterable joy, to read this and put my cheek against the signature, to tuck it inside my gown and feel that I was in possession of the most precious treasure the whole world could produce, the first real long letter from the man I loved. I went into the dining-room, took it out again, and began kissing each line in turn, I was so silly with happiness. I had got to the middle of the second page in this fashion, when the iron bar which fastened the shutters suddenly fell down and swung backwards and forwards almost without noise. I thrust my letter hastily back into my gown and stared at the shutters, too much startled to think what could be the reason of this, when one of them slid softly back, and a man was in the room before I could get to the door. With a cry of relief, I sprang towards him. “Oh, Mr. Rayner, how you frightened me! I thought you were a burglar.” “My poor dear little girl, I often come in this way to save kicking my heels at the door; but I wouldn’t have done it, frightening you out of your wits, if I had known you were in here. I thought everybody would be occupied with the two invalids. And how are you, little woman?” I was so delighted to see him back once more, to feel that at last there was some one to look up to and trust in the house again, that I laughed and cried together as he shook my hands and patted my shoulder, and told me that it would never do to leave me at the Alders in his absence again; he should have to take me with him. I laughed.