After all, dearest Alston, what a very little bit of trouble I have known in my life--just those dark days when poor papa's affairs went badly, and you came and brightened them up with that blessed, steady light which has shone on all my pathway since. Why are people's history so different? Is mine to be always an exception? Some time before you left me, and when I was much less thoughtful than I am now, I have occasionally felt afraid that I was too happy; there seemed such deep peace, of such settled certainty, in our lives. I hardly understand all the talk in books and in speech about the turbulence and the transitoriness and the perpetual change which mark human existence all over the world; while your absence has taken away that deep tranquillity, it has not touched, of course, the real happiness of my life. I would not have you think me discontented, and, perhaps, this little shake is good for me--will be good for us both. This is a lesson which Mrs. Jenkins, in her good, quiet, homely, honest way, impresses on me very often. It does one good to see a person who has had plenty of trouble of a sternly material kind, as well as a great sorrow, bear them with the ready submission and cheerful courage of this poor woman; and many a time when I see her with our baby in her arms and at her breast, where her dead child once lay, I ask myself how I should have faced such a life as hers. I have said before that we are great friends; she has formed a really strong affection for me--it is like the kind of thing one hears about the Irish people in old times. I fancy she would not shrink from any sacrifice for me. She is extremely curious about you, and never tired of hearing me tell how I came to know you first, and the story of my girlhood; and I talk to her about all these things; so you will have no difficulty in believing that our new nurse is an exceptional person, and that, though she is homely in speech and manner, there is no real inferiority in her. Don't laugh at me when I say that I am quite sure you and she will be great friends. There is, at least, one very strong bond of union between you: Mrs. Jenkins has a ruling passion--it is for the drama. I found that out very soon.