"DEAR TIP,--Do you have Fourth of July out your way this year? We do here in Albany; rather, I'm going to have one in my yard. Perhaps you remember a Fourth of July which you took me to once, when we were ragged little wretches at home? I do, anyhow, and this is to be twin-brother to that time. All the ugly, dingy little urchins that I know have been invited. We're to have fine fireworks and fine singing and fine _eating_. My wife added that last item,--thought it a great improvement. I'm not sure but it is; most things are that she has a hand in. Now, to come to the point of this letter,--you're to make the speech on that occasion. No getting out of it now! I planned this thing one day in the old schoolhouse. Oh, did you know Mr. Burrows had given up teaching? Grown too old. Queer, isn't it? Don't seem as if anybody was growing old except me. At first I wasn't going to have my feast on the Fourth, because, you remember, it was on _that_ day that our blessed Ray left us; but, talking with Mr. Minturn about it, he said Ray would have been delighted with it all,--and so he would, you know. Don't think we are going to gather in all Albany; it's only the younger scholars of the mission school, in which my wife and I are interested. "Tell Howard and Kitty to be sure and come; they can put their visit a few weeks earlier as well as not. "Oh, by the way, if you have heard from Ellis Holbrook lately, you are singing 'Glory Hallelujah' by this time! "I am writing this in the counting-room, and am in a great hurry, though you wouldn't think it. Shall expect you by the third, _certainly_.-- "Yours, etc., "BOB TURNER." These letters came on Saturday evening. The next morning, in Sabbath school, when the superintendent's bell rang, the minister left his class of mission scholars, and went up the aisle towards the altar, pausing first to speak with a bright-eyed little lady, who sat before her class of bright-eyed little girls. "Kitty, where is Howard?" "At home, coaxing a fit of sick headache." "Well, here are letters that will interest you both,--came last evening; one contains an invitation. Tell Howard I think we must try to go. Mother bade me tell you she wanted to see you at the parsonage in the morning; she is not out to-day." Then he went on. The scholars began to sit up straight, and fold their arms; they knew they must listen if they wanted Mr. Lewis to talk to them. When every eye was fixed on him, he began,--