I feel guilty every minute I stay away. Those cheery letters of yours tell only the funny side of housekeeping, but I know that there is another side, too, and that inexperience and hot weather and hard work are a serious combination. It is too big a load for one pair of shoulders. I was sorry to hear that the Duchess had gone; she promised so well that I felt relieved about my motherless children and my wifeless husband. I hope you will be able to get Mr. Hopkins’s daughter. If not, you had better go to the boarding-house for dinner and supper during the hot weather. How is David? I think of him so often these torrid days. If his hay fever is bad, he ought to be sent nearer the lake. Watch him carefully, dear, won’t you? There is little for me to write you. No news is sanitarium news, and I see no one but my doctor and nurse and a few people whose illness is the most interesting thing about them. I live on your letters,—the dear, funny letters that you must steal time from recreation to write. I read scraps of them to the doctor and a few friends I have made here, and they never fail to ask me daily if I have “heard from the clever daughter.” The cleverness I knew all about, long ago, but I am finding out new things every day about the sweetness and usefulness of that same daughter. Try to save yourself all you can, dearie. Why, oh, why, when you were choosing, didn’t you select a mother that didn’t “prostrate”? Kiss the babes for me, and tell your father that I can’t and won’t stay away much longer. Much love from MOTHER. Barbara read the letter aloud to Gassy on one of the hottest of the August days. Then she drew the little sister into her arms and kissed her,—a long-drawn kiss in which was expressed relief and joy and gratitude. Gassy understood, and nestled close with a happy little croon. “Won’t it be nice to have her back, Barbara?” she whispered. “It’s been awful lonesome without her! If it hadn’t been for you, I couldn’t have stood it.” Then, ashamed of her unwonted show of affection, she drew herself out of her sister’s lap, saying in her stiff little voice, which had been heard less frequently of late, “It’s too hot to kiss!” “There’s another letter, too,” said Barbara; “I don’t know whether I’d better open it or not. It’s addressed to mother, but I think it is from Aunt Sarah.” Gassy made a grimace. “Better open it, then. It won’t hold any good news.” “I’m afraid I must; Aunt Sarah doesn’t know that mother is away from home. I hope it isn’t descriptive of any more family broils. If it is, I shan’t forward it.” “Prob’ly she’s going to make us a visit,” said Gassy. A horrible foreboding of what Gassy’s prediction would mean swept over Barbara. It was succeeded by a still more horrible sensation as she read the letter:—