rm, yet
delicate and womanly withal. Here even the long lashes of her eyes
were visible, just as in life. Yes, it was her face!

[Illustration: "Her face indeed!"]

And now he read the letter, which covered many closely written sheets:

Meriwether Lewis, I said to you that my face should come to
you, wherever you might be. This time it has been long--I
cannot tell how long. That is for my messenger to determine,
not for you or me. But that it has been long I shall know,
else long since there would have been no need of my adding
this letter to the others.

Not one of them has served to bring you back! Since you now
have this one, let it advise you that she who wrote it is
grieved that you gaze upon this little portrait, and not
upon the face of her whom it represents. 'Tis a monstrous
good likeness, they tell me; but would you not rather it
were myself?

Where are you? I cannot tell. What adversities have been
yours? I cannot tell that. You cannot know what grief you
have caused by your long absence. You cannot know how many
hearts you have made sad. You cannot know how you have
delayed--destroyed--plans made for you. We are in ignorance,
each of the other, now. I do not know where you are--you do
not know where I may be. A great wall arises between us. A
great gulf is fixed. We cannot touch hands across it.

As I know, this will not move you; but I cannot restrain
this reproach. I cannot help telling you that you have made
me suffer by your silence, by your absence. Do I make you
suffer by looking at you with reproach in my eyes--as I do
now?

You have forgotten your childhood friend! I may be dead as
you read--would you care? I have been in need--yet you have
not come to comfort me and to dry my tears.

Figure to yourself what has happened to all my plans and
dreams for you. Even I cannot tell of that, because, as I
write, it all lies in the future--that future which is the
present for you as you sit reading this. All I know is that
as you read it my appeal has failed.

I can but guess how or where these presents may find you;
for how shall I know how wise or how faithful my messenger
has been? Are you on the prairie still, Meriwether Lewis?
Is it winter? Does the snow lie deep? Are the winds keen and
biting? Are you w