ust the people for each other. I'd like to say that it's just
what I'd always longed for, and that I invited you to Hillcrest to
bring it about; but the trouble with such a story would be that it
wouldn't have a word of truth in it. You always DID have a faculty of
doing just what you pleased, and what nobody ever expected you to do,
but now you've exceeded yourself.

"And to think that my little darlings played an important part in
bringing it all about! I shall take the credit for THAT, for if it
hadn't been for me, who would have helped you, sir? I shall expect you
to remember both of them handsomely at Christmas.

"I don't believe I'm guilty of a breach of confidence in sending the
enclosed, which I have just received from my sister-in-law that is to
be. It will tell you some causes of your success of which you, with a
man's conceit, haven't imagined for a minute, and it will tell you,
too, of a maiden's first and natural fear under such circumstances,--a
fear which I know that you, with your honest, generous heart, will
hasten to dispel. As you're a man, you're quite likely to be too stupid
to read what's written between the lines; so I'd better tell you that
Alice's fear is that in letting herself go so easily she may have
seemed to lack proper reserve and self-respect. You don't need to be
told that no woman alive has more of these very qualities.

"Bless your dear old heart, Harry,--you deserve to be shaken to death
if you're not the happiest man alive. I MUST hurry home and see you
both with my own eyes, and learn to believe that all this wonderful
glorious thing has come to pass. Give Alice a sister's kiss from me (if
you know how to give more than one kind), and give my cherubs a hundred
each from the mother that wants to see them so much.

"With love and congratulations,

"HELEN."

The other letter, which I opened with considerable reverence and more
delight, ran as follows:--

"HILLCREST, June 29, 1875.

"DEAR FRIEND HELEN:--Something has happened, and I am very happy, but I
am more than a little troubled over it, too, and as you are one of the
persons nearly concerned, I am going to confess to you as soon as
possible. Harry--your brother, I mean--will be sure to tell you very
soon, if he hasn't done so already, and I want to make all possible
haste to solemnly assure you that _I_ hadn't the slightest idea of such
a thing coming to pass, and I didn't do the slightest thing to bring it
about.