"And you'll do anything in reason you are told to by the Book?" "Yes, indeed." "Take your pencil and mark this"; and, with his long forefinger pointing to the text, he read impressively, "'This is my commandment, that you love one another.'" Whether in the Scriptures or out of it, Ann and Abe soon found something to laugh at. "Ann is laughing," Mr. Rutledge said to his wife. "How good it sounds! What on earth has been the matter with her?" "She hasn't heard from John McNeil," Mrs. Rutledge answered. "McNeil seems to be a good fellow and unusually successful," John Rutledge observed after a moment of reflection, "but Ann's not married to him yet." CHAPTER XXIV IN THE CELLAR After months of waiting Ann Rutledge received a letter from John McNeil. It was a straightforward explanation of the delay, mentioning sickness along the way, and other obstacles. Ann Rutledge was delighted. In some way it seemed to lift a burden and answer a question. Nance Cameron had the pleasure of starting the news of the letter, and its satisfactory contents, which allayed gossip, and for a time Ann was quite herself again. But no more letters came, and Ann was soon again cast down by the strangeness of her lover's silence. Once when she had hurried to the post-office after the weekly mail had arrived only to be told by the postmaster there was no letter, she made an appeal to him which touched his heart. "He ought to write to me," she half sobbed. "Everybody is wondering about it. I don't want people to know he never writes. Don't tell it." The postmaster promised, but Ann's troubled face haunted him, and he found himself getting thoroughly indignant with McNeil, even though glad beyond expression that he was treating her just as he was. As the days and weeks went by Ann found the burden of the secret weighing heavily on her conscience, and the thought kept intruding itself that since he had deceived her in one way he might have done so in other ways. It was hard to think this, and yet it was almost as easy to believe as that his name was not McNeil and that he had been gone months without writing. She felt that she had done very wrong to promise to keep a secret, and such a grave and important secret, from her parents. Yet she had promised, and, torn between the feeling that she must confide in her parents and that she must keep her promise, she grew pale and quiet and unlike the laughing, singing Ann of a few months previous. Her parents noticed this with concern, and it hurt the heart of Abe Lincoln, yet none of them surmised the real trouble. One day after Ann had been her unreal self for several months, Lincoln came home for supper early and went into the kitchen to help Mrs. Rutledge. "I want a pan of potatoes," she said. "They're in the short bin near the door. I sent Ann for them half an hour ago, but she must have gone somewhere else." "Mrs. Rutledge," said Abe Lincoln as he tucked the pan under his arm, "what ails Ann?"