Calista fastened her door and then sat down to look over her treasures. The Bible had evidently been long and carefully used, and was marked from end to end with pencil marks, notes, and references. As Calista turned over the leaves, it seemed to her as if her mother was talking with her, so many of the passages seemed marked with special reference to herself. But the most precious of all was to come. Pinned to the last leaf of the book was a letter in her mother's handwriting, addressed— "To my dear and precious daughter, Calista Stanfield. To be given her as soon as she shall be able to read and understand it." Calista carefully unpinned the letter and looked at it before she broke the seal, and a feeling of anger rose in her heart at the thought that so precious a legacy should have been kept from her hands so long. But this emotion passed away as she read the letter—just such a letter as a loving, tender, Christian mother might be expected to write to a daughter under such circumstances. It began with a slight sketch of the writer's own life, and from it Calista first learned that her maternal grandfather had been a somewhat noted New England minister. "I wonder whether I have any relations living," thought Calista. "I must try to find out some time." The letter proceeded to give some judicious counsel as to the guidance of her future life. "I cannot but feel that I have been hardly treated by your father's family," the writer went on to say. "Certainly, I never intended to injure them in any way. Nevertheless, for your father's sake, should you be brought in contact with your grandfather or aunt, I beg you will try to make friends with them." The writer concluded with a most earnest appeal to Calista at once to give her whole heart to her heavenly Father, to put herself body and soul in his hands, and strive to follow the steps of her Saviour into all holiness and godly living, that she might not fail to meet her friends at the right hand of God in the great day of account. Calista shed many tears over this letter, as was only natural. "Oh, I will—I will!" she said to herself. "I will try to be a Christian, like my dear mother. I will resolve this minute to serve God, and to put myself into his hands." So she did, poor lonely child, and that in all sincerity; but she was to find out that the gate was straiter and the way narrower than she had any idea of. The "lion in the way" does not usually lie on the threshold, but just a little way inside. Calista went to bed thinking that she should not sleep at all; but youth and health do not often lie awake long. She was asleep almost before her head touched the pillow, and did not awake till the robin which lived in the great tree opposite her window began his usual musical morning call.