dear, Sarah Hunter."

There was a quaint twist to the letter S; sharp angles in the
chirography which a newer decade of femininity might have found sadly
lacking in a largeness of loops now indispensable as indication of
"character." And there was a postscript, of course.

"Stephen O'Mara has been several times to dinner, since your departure.
He is working very hard, but most successfully, I am sure, for he
appears to be very happy. He is thinner than he was, but who could
have guessed that the boy he was would grow to be such a handsome man!
Men with eyes like his and such voices used to break the hearts of
susceptible maids, when I was sixteen. Do come! S. H."

She read it aloud from beginning to end, nor did she falter much when
Caleb greeted the postscript with a shout of joy. Caleb was most
high-spirited those days, for the line in regard to the progress of
Steve's work was in truth an under-statement if anything, even though
the assurance of his happiness might have been called a misconstruance
of facts. Caleb had almost begun to think that he had done Dexter
Allison, his friend, an injustice. He had begun to congratulate
himself on having said nothing to him directly.

"What do you think of it?" his sister asked pleasantly, when she had
finished reading. "Will it--do?"

"If you mean--will it fetch her, I can only say Heaven knows!" Indeed
he was enjoying himself. "You feel positive that she cares for him,
you say? . . . But I thought you were always inclined to believe Steve
rather easy to look at, even as a boy?"

"I was!" maintained Miss Sarah. Her voice grew girlish. "Do you
remember the night you gave him my old hunting coat, Cal, and he went
to sleep with it in his arms?"

Some of the teasing note left her brother's voice.

"Then why do you tell Barbara--why do you seem to infer--" he foundered
hopelessly.

"Stupid!" said Miss Sarah. "Will she come?"

"She won't!" he stated solidly.

When he spoke in that tone Miss Sarah always chose to believe the
contrary, and events in this instance proved her right. Barbara did
not wire. She wrote a long letter full of little twists and turns
which led at last to the subject which Miss Sarah had mentioned so
parenthetically.

"I am delighted at the prospect of getting away from town for a week,"
she closed as she had opened her reply--"delighted at Mr. O'Mara's
splendid success. Last night I overheard father telling some business
a