to gaze upon from the rocky cliffs, as it dashed itself in fine
spray against their base, or from the broad crescent beach beyond, as it
rolled its crested billows up the sandy slope. Yes, all these things
were very pleasant,--far more delightful than she had anticipated. She
thought during those first few days that she would like to live on there
forever, until the novelty wore off and her father's ailings crushed out
the new life which the change had given birth to and kept him locked in
his own den with his miseries; and even then nature began to pall as a
constant and sole companion, and her mind turned with ever-increasing
anxiety to the one event which could possibly break this spell of
monotony. Had her letter _in fact_ miscarried? or could it be that the
favored recipient had treated it with cold contempt, ruthlessly
destroyed it or cast it into the wastepaper-basket? Many were the
painful, blush-provoking thoughts that each terrible possibility
suggested. She had long since decided that she had been a little fool,
and that of course Seniors in college had better things to do than to
answer silly girls' more silly letters, when one day on her regular
visit to Barton Bump's store she overheard the following:

"It's bin a-kickin' round this here store three days, an' I ain't goin'
ter be bothered no longer. Hiram, jes' you stick the dratted thing in
one o' them 'ficial en-_vell_ups, an' 'dress it to Wash'ton, D.C."

"Ain't ye goin' to advertise it, dad?"

"'Tain't no good advertisin' it, Hiram. There ain't nobody as calls
herself Jennings in the hull county, an' I know it."

But Mabel interrupted him. "Miss Jane Jennings, is it? Why, that letter
is for me!" she exclaimed eagerly.

"Fur you, miss?" asked Barton, glancing at her suspiciously over his
spectacles. "Ain't your name Moreley?"

"Yes," she answered, in some embarrassment, "but--but Jane Jennings is
our servant, you know. Give me the letter. I will take it to her."

Barton hesitated. He hadn't had any communication with the government
for some time, and liked to remind them in the capital now and then of
his existence. "Well," he said finally, and with reluctance, "ef you're
sartin', why, here ye be." And Mabel took it, and bore it away with a
palpitating heart, quite forgetting to purchase the supplies which the
cook had commissioned her to bring home for dinner.

In the most secluded spot in the dark pine wood she broke the seal and
read as foll