t his suffering, and think--why it is not you, but
Charlie, who is sick? The thought puzzles you; and well it may, for in
it lies the whole mystery of our fate.

Those letters grow more and more discouraging, and the kind admonitions
of your mother grow more earnest, as if (though the thought does not
come to you until years afterward) she was preparing herself to fasten
upon you that surplus of affection which she fears may soon be withdrawn
forever from the sick child.

It is on a frosty, bleak evening, when you are playing with Nat, that
the letter reaches you which says Charlie is growing worse, and that you
must come to your home. It makes a dreamy night for you--fancying how
Charlie will look, and if sickness has altered him much, and if he will
not be well by Christmas. From this you fall away in your reverie to the
odd old house and its secret cupboards, and your aunt's queer caps; then
come up those black eyes of "your attached Jenny," and you think it a
pity that she is six month's older than you; and again--as you recall
one of her sighs--you think that six months are not much after all!

You bid her good-bye, with a little sentiment swelling in your throat,
and are mortally afraid Nat will see your lip tremble. Of course you
promise to write, and squeeze her hand with an honesty you do not think
of doubting--for weeks.

It is a dull, cold ride, that day, for you. The winds sweep over the
withered cornfields with a harsh, chilly whistle, and the surfaces of
the little pools by the roadside are tossed up into cold blue wrinkles
of water. Here and there a flock of quail, with their feathers ruffled
in the autumn gusts, tread through the hard, dry stubble of an oatfield;
or, startled by the snap of the driver's whip, they stare a moment at
the coach, then whir away down the cold current of the wind. The blue
jays scream from the roadside oaks, and the last of the blue and purple
asters shiver along the wall. And as the sun sinks, reddening all the
western clouds to the color of the frosted maples, light lines of the
Aurora gush up from the northern hills, and trail their splintered
fingers far over the autumn sky.

It is quite dark when you reach home, but you see the bright reflection
of a fire within, and presently at the open door Nelly clapping her
hands for welcome. But there are sad faces when you enter. Your mother
folds you to her heart; but at your first noisy outburst of joy puts her
finger on her