d forward and took the letter, glanced brightly at Mrs.
Stannard, and exclaimed, with all the delight and _naivete_ of genuine
surprise,--

"Why, it _is_ for me, Mrs. Stannard! Now you shall not see a line of it,
for you would not show me yours." And then with provoking coolness,
while Grace gasped in admiration and astonishment, Marion opened and
read with beaming smile her letter from Ray,--the only one he had time
to write in Chicago.

It was very brief, yet when 'twas finished she wished, with all her
heart, she could escape to her own room and read it once again, all by
herself. It was the first letter--in the least like it--she ever
received. It made her pulses bound, and it put her mettle to the test to
turn at once to conversation with the one youth who had received no
letter. It made her long for stable-call to sound that she might be
alone and read it again and again, and yet it was very, very simple and
direct. The trumpets rang their signal soon enough. The young cavalrymen
doffed their caps and scurried away. Mrs. Stannard, smiling knowingly,
said she would take a walk with Mrs. Turner, and then the two school
friends were left alone.

"Maidie, what does he say?"

"Let me read it quietly, Grace dear. I _couldn't_ there."

She had not seen him since sending that very, very outspoken letter the
afternoon after he was taken to Cheyenne, and the letter he had written
in answer to that was full of gratitude for her faith in him,--full of
assurance that with such words as those to cheer him he would bear his
further trials as became a man, but, until fully vindicated of every
charge, he would not return to Russell and could not hope to see her;
but, once freed from the odium of any and every allegation affecting his
integrity, he should come to thank her in person for the strength and
comfort her beautiful letter had given him.

And now--he was coming. He could not wait for his own arrival, since he
had to stop over one day. The instant he left the colonel's presence he
had asked for a desk in the aide-de-camp's room, had penned a few hasty
lines to her first of all, had hurried with them to the Rock Island
Depot, only a few squares away, that they might catch the mail just
starting, and she--she who had proved so gallantly her faith in him, be
the first to know of his complete vindication. Ray never wrote such a
letter in his life before:

"Only thirty minutes before the westward mail starts, and th