ut, in some brighter clime,
Bid me good-morning."

When Anne knew that the funeral was over, that another grave had been
made under the snow in the little military cemetery, and that, with the
strange swiftness which is so hard for mourning hearts to realize, daily
life was moving on again in the small island circle where the kind old
face would be seen no more, she sent her letter, the same old letter,
unaltered and travel-worn. Then she waited. She could not receive her
answer before the eighth or ninth day. But on the fifth came two
letters; on the seventh, three. The first were from Miss Lois and Mrs.
Bryden; the others from Tita, Pere Michaux, and--Rast. And the
extraordinary tidings they brought were these: Rast had married Tita.
The little sister was now his wife.

CHAPTER XXII.

"A slave had long worn a chain upon his ankle. By the order of his
master it was removed. 'Why dost thou spring aloft and sing, O
slave? Surely the sun is as fierce and thy burden as heavy as
before.' The slave replied: 'Ten times the sun and the burden would
seem light, now that the chain is removed.'"--_From the Arabic._

Miss Lois's letter was a wail:

"MY POOR DEAR OUTRAGED CHILD,--What _can_ I say to you? There is no use
in trying to _prepare_ you for it, since you would never _conceive_ such
_double-dyed_ blackness of heart! Tita has _run away_. She slipped off
clandestinely, and they think she has followed _Rast_, who left
yesterday on his way back to St. Louis and the West. Pere Michaux has
followed _her_, saying that if he found them together he should, acting
as Tita's guardian, insist upon a _marriage_ before he returned! He
feels himself responsible for _Tita_, he says, and paid no attention
when I asked him if no one was to be responsible for _you_! My poor
child, it seems that I have been blind all along; I never _dreamed_ of
what was going on. The little minx deceived me completely. I thought her
so much improved, so studious, while all the time she was meeting
Erastus, or planning to meet him, with a skill far beyond _my_
comprehension. All last summer, they tell me, she was with him
constantly; those daily journeys to Pere Michaux's island were for that
purpose, while I supposed they were for prayers. What _Erastus_ thought
or meant, no one seems to know; but they all combined in declaring that
the child (child no longer!) was deeply in love with him, and that
everybo