to hear from her.
It is the first time she has written since she went away--over two
months ago."

He spoke precisely as he would have spoken if it had been a letter from
any friend he had. It was like him to do this, and the surer another man
would have been to try to conceal his interest in the letter the surer
was Jordan King to proclaim it. The very fact that this announcement was
certain to rouse his mother's suspicion that the affair was of moment
to him was enough to make him tell her frankly that she was quite right.

He laid the letter on the desk before him unopened, and went on with his
work. Mrs. King stood still and looked at him a moment before moving
quietly away, and disturbance was written upon her face. She knew her
son's habit of finishing one thing before he took up another, but she
understood also that he wished to be alone when he should read this
letter. She left the room, but soon afterward she softly passed the open
door, and she saw that the letter lay open before him and that his head
was bent over it. The words before him were these:

DEAR MR. KING:

I had not meant to write to you for much longer than this, but
I find myself so anxious to know how you are that I am
yielding to the temptation. I may as well confess that I am
just a little lonely to-night, in spite of having had a pretty
good day with the little book--rather better than usual.
Sometimes I almost wish I hadn't spent that fortnight with
Mrs. Burns, I find myself missing her so. And yet, how can one
be sorry for any happy thing that comes to one? As I look back
on them now, though I am well and strong again, those days of
convalescence in the hospital stand out as among the happiest
in my life. The pleasant people, the flowers, the notes, all
the incidents of that time, not the least among them Franz's
music, stay in my memory like a series of pictures.

Do you care to tell me how you come on? If so you may write to
me, care of general delivery, in this town, at any time for
the next five days. I shall be so glad to hear.

ANNE LINTON.

King looked up as his mother approached. He folded the letter and put
it into his pocket.

"Mother," he said, "I may as well tell you something. You won't approve
of it, and that is why I must tell you. From the hour I first saw Miss
Linton I've been unable to forget her. I know, by every sign, tha