not help asking myself why I was made as I
am. Why can't I be a clod, a plodder, and drag my way with stupid good
nature through this miserable world, instead of chafing and bruising
myself at every step."

Now it would be very natural to suppose that a young lady with a
grain of sense left in her brains, would, in cooler moments, have
been rather glad than otherwise, to have such a restless, unhappy,
unchristianlike letter hopelessly lost. But Ester felt, as has been
seen, thoroughly angry that so much lofty sentiment, which she mistook
for religion, was entirely lost Yet let it not be supposed that one
word of this rebellious outbreak was written simply for effect. Ester,
when she wrote that she "hated her life," was thoroughly and miserably
in earnest. When, in the solitude of her own room, she paced her floor
that evening, and murmured, despairingly: "Oh, if something would
_only_ happen to rest me for just a little while!" she was more
thoroughly in earnest than any human being who feels that Christ has
died to save her, and that she has an eternal resting-place prepared
for her, and waiting to receive her, has any right to feel on such a
subject. Yet, though the letter had never reached its destination,
the pitying Savior, looking down upon his poor, foolish lamb in tender
love, made haste to prepare an answer to her wild, rebellious cry for
help, even though she cried blindly, without a thought of the Helper
who is sufficient for all human needs.

"Long looked for, come at last!" and Sadie's clear voice rang through
the dining-room, and a moment after that young lady herself reached
the pump-room, holding up for Ester's view a dainty envelope, directed
in a yet more dainty hand to Miss Ester Ried. "Here's that wonderful
letter from Cousin Abbie which you have sent me to the post-office
after three times a day for as many weeks. It reached here by the way
of Cape Horn, I should say, by its appearance. It has been remailed
twice."

Ester set her pail down hastily, seized the letter, and retired to the
privacy of the pantry to devour it; and for once was oblivious to the
fact that Sadie lunched on bits of cake broken from the smooth, square
loaf while she waited to hear the news.

"Anything special?" Mrs. Ried asked, pausing in the doorway, which
question Ester answered by turning a flushed and eager face toward
them, as she passed the letter to Sadie, with permission to read it
aloud. Surprised into silence b