ill we get home?--this place not
being absolute seclusion."

"Shall I read this now?" said Faith rather hastily.

"I should think there would be no danger in that."

With somewhat unsteady fingers, that yet tried to be quiet, Faith broke
the seal; and masking her glowing face with one hand, she bent over the
letter to read it.

"My very dear, and most unknown, and most well-known little sister! I
have had a picture sent me of you--as you appeared one night, when you
sat for your portrait, hearing Portia; and with it a notice of several
events which occurred just before that time. And both picture and
events have gone down into my heart, and abide there. Endecott says you
are a Sunbeam--and I feel as if a little of the light had come over the
water to me,--ever since his letter came I have been in a state of
absolute reflection!

"I thought my love would not be the first to 'find out the way'--even
then when I wrote it! Faith--do you know that there is nobody in the
world just like him? because if you do not--you will find it out!--I
mean! like Endecott--_not_ like Love. My dear, I beg pardon for my
pronoun! But just how _I_ have loved you all these months, for making
him so happy, I cannot tell you.

"And I cannot write to-day--about anything,--my thoughts are in too
uneven a flow to find their way to the end of my pen, and take all
possible flights instead. Dear Faith, you must wait for a _letter_ till
the next steamer. And you cannot miss it--nor anything else, with
Endecott there,--it seems to me that to be even in the same country
with him is happiness.

"You must love me too, Faith, and not think me a stranger,--and let me
be your (because I am Endy's)

"PET."

Faith took a great deal more time than was necessary for the reading of
this letter. Very much indeed she would have liked to do as her
correspondent confessed she had done, and cry--but there was no sign of
such an inclination. She only sat perfectly moveless, bending over her
letter. At last suddenly looked up and gave it to Mr. Linden.

"Well?" he said with a smile at her as he took it.

"You'll see--" she said, a little breathlessly. And still holding her
hand fast, Mr. Linden read the letter, quicker than she had done, and
without comment--unless when his look shewed that it touched him.

"You will love her, Faith!" he said as he folded the letter up
again,--"in spite of all your inclinations to the contrary!"

"Do you think tha