follow
us, but I will not believe in your bad luck. Listen to me--why
don't you come to America also? Oh, think it over! Don't believe
the worst will come. When they release you from prison, innocent
and acquitted, cross the ocean and set up your tent under the Stars
and Stripes. Think of it! Nearly all those men in America who
fought under Washington and won were born in these islands. They
took with them to that far land the memory and love of these old
homes. You and I would have fought for England and with the British
troops, because we detest revolution. Here, in Ireland, we have
seen its evils; and yet if we had fought for the Union Jack beyond
the mountains of Maine and in the lonely woods, we should, I
believe, in the end have said that the freedom fought for by the
American States was well won.

So keep this matter in your mind, for my mother and I will soon be
gone. She would not let me come to you,--I think I have never seen
her so disturbed as when I asked her, and she forbade me to write to
you; but I disobey her. Well, this is a sad business. I know my
mother has suffered. I know her married life was unhappy, and that
her husband--my father-died many a year ago, leaving a dark trail of
regret behind him; but, you see, I never knew my father. That was
all long ago, and it is a hundred times best forgotten.

Our ship sails for Virginia in three days, and I must go. I will
keep looking back to the prison where lies, charged with an evil
crime, of which he is not guilty, a young man for whom I shall
always carry the spirit of good friendship.

Do not believe all will not go well. Let us keep the courage of
our hearts and the faith of our souls--and I hope I always shall!
I believe in you, and, believing, I say good-bye. I say farewell in
the great hope that somehow, somewhere, we shall help each other on
the way of life. God be with you!
I am your friend,
SHEILA LLYN.

P. S.--I beg you to remember that America is a good place for a
young man to live in and succeed.

Dyck read the letter with a wonderful slowness. He realized that by
happy accident--it could be nothing else--Mrs. Llyn had been able to
keep from her daughter the fact that the man who had been killed in the
tavern by the river was her father. It was clear that the girl was kept
much to herself, read no