for a fortnight seems to take all the heroism
out of it, and leave it as flat!" She looked at her mother with a smile
that shone through her tears, and a pathos that quivered round her
jesting lips. "It's easy enough to be sensible for other people. But
when it comes to myself, there I am! Especially, when I want to do what
I oughtn't so much that it seems as if doing what I didn't want to do
MUST be doing what I ought! But it's been a great success one way,
mother. It's helped me to keep up before the Colonel. If it hadn't
been for Mr. Corey's staying away, and my feeling so indignant with him
for having been badly treated by me, I shouldn't have been worth
anything at all."

The tears started down her cheeks, but her mother said, "Well, now, go
along, and write to him. It don't matter what you say, much; and don't
be so very particular."

Her third attempt at a letter pleased her scarcely better than the
rest, but she sent it, though it seemed so blunt and awkward. She
wrote:--

DEAR FRIEND,--I expected when I sent you that note, that you would
understand, almost the next day, why I could not see you any more. You
must know now, and you must not think that if anything happened to my
father, I should wish you to help him. But that is no reason why I
should not thank you, and I do thank you, for offering. It was like
you, I will say that.

Yours sincerely, PENELOPE LAPHAM.

She posted her letter, and he sent his reply in the evening, by hand:--

DEAREST,--What I did was nothing, till you praised it. Everything I
have and am is yours. Won't you send a line by the bearer, to say that
I may come to see you? I know how you feel; but I am sure that I can
make you think differently. You must consider that I loved you without
a thought of your father's circumstances, and always shall.

T. C.

The generous words were blurred to her eyes by the tears that sprang
into them. But she could only write in answer:--

"Please do not come; I have made up my mind. As long as this trouble
is hanging over us, I cannot see you. And if father is unfortunate,
all is over between us."

She brought his letter to her mother, and told her what she had written
in reply. Her mother was thoughtful a while before she said, with a
sigh, "Well, I hope you've begun as you can carry out, Pen."

"Oh, I shall not have to carry out at all. I shall not have to do
anything. That's one comfort--the only comfort." Sh