.

So she carried the letter to her aunt, a rather slight woman with
a kindly face and shrewd eyes, and who appeared somewhat given to
old-fashioned garments.

"Aunt Mary, here's a letter from Glenn," said Carley. "It's more of a
stumper than usual. Please read it."

"Dear me! You look upset," replied the aunt, mildly, and, adjusting her
spectacles, she took the letter.

Carley waited impatiently for the perusal, conscious of inward forces
coming more and more to the aid of her impulse to go West. Her aunt
paused once to murmur how glad she was that Glenn had gotten well. Then
she read on to the close.

"Carley, that's a fine letter," she said, fervently. "Do you see through
it?"

"No, I don't," replied Carley. "That's why I asked you to read it."

"Do you still love Glenn as you used to before--"

"Why, Aunt Mary!" exclaimed Carley, in surprise.

"Excuse me, Carley, if I'm blunt. But the fact is young women of modern
times are very different from my kind when I was a girl. You haven't
acted as though you pined for Glenn. You gad around almost the same as
ever."

"What's a girl to do?" protested Carley.

"You are twenty-six years old, Carley," retorted Aunt Mary.

"Suppose I am. I'm as young--as I ever was."

"Well, let's not argue about modern girls and modern times. We never get
anywhere," returned her aunt, kindly. "But I can tell you something of
what Glenn Kilbourne means in that letter--if you want to hear it."

"I do--indeed."

"The war did something horrible to Glenn aside from wrecking his health.
Shell-shock, they said! I don't understand that. Out of his mind, they
said! But that never was true. Glenn was as sane as I am, and, my dear,
that's pretty sane, I'll have you remember. But he must have suffered
some terrible blight to his spirit--some blunting of his soul. For
months after he returned he walked as one in a trance. Then came a
change. He grew restless. Perhaps that change was for the better. At
least it showed he'd roused. Glenn saw you and your friends and the
life you lead, and all the present, with eyes from which the scales had
dropped. He saw what was wrong. He never said so to me, but I knew it.
It wasn't only to get well that he went West. It was to get away....
And, Carley Burch, if your happiness depends on him you had better be up
and doing--or you'll lose him!"

"Aunt Mary!" gasped Carley.

"I mean it. That letter shows how near he came to the Valley of the
Shadow--a