f, I'm afraid I couldn't have resisted the temptation. I
should probably have thrown all responsibility on my solicitor, and let
him settle everything as he thought best. The strength to resist has
come through you, and what you have taught me. So it is that this man
who has insulted you, and burned your letters, owes his comforts and
perhaps his life itself, to you.

"There are many things which it is hard to forgive him, but I think the
hardest of all is the loss of the letters. To lose them is like losing
my talisman. But the ones he was keeping as a threat, I shall have
again. The solicitor says he will force the man to give them up.

"Now that my leaving this dear house is settled, the next question is,
What shall I do with my life, since my services as an untrained nurse
are no longer pledged here? Already, though only a few days have
passed, I've decided how to answer that question. I shall go into some
hospital as a probationer, and as soon as I am qualified, I shall offer
my services to the Red Cross. That may be sooner than with most
amateurs, for already I've learned almost as much about nursing as
hospital training of a year could have taught me. Wherever I'm sent,
I'm willing to go. But before I take up this new work, I have a plan to
carry out. Oh, how I wonder what you will say to it!

"Only a few weeks before she went out of the world, a cousin of my
father's left Mother some property in California, quite valuable
property, near Bakersfield. I don't know if you have ever been there,
but of course you've heard that it is a great oil country. There are
big wells on this property. If it had come to Mother earlier, she would
have been overjoyed, because it would have made all the difference
between skimping poverty and comparative riches. It came too late for
her, and for me it isn't very important, so far as the money is
concerned. There's another thing that makes it important, though. The
place is in California! It seems like mending a link in a broken chain,
to own land in dear California again.

"Mother always said she would hate to go back, but I never felt like
that. Now, it seems to be rather necessary for me to go--or to send
some one, to look into things which concern the property. We hear there
has been mismanagement--perhaps dishonesty. Of course I know nothing
about business myself, and should be of no use. But if I went to
California, I would engage some good lawyer on the spot, to take care