Miss Ruth Elmer." It was from her dearest friend, Edna May; and as
Ruth handed it to her mother, who read it aloud to the whole family, we
will read it too:

"NORTON, MAINE, May 5, 188-.

"MY OWN DARLING RUTH,--What is the matter? I haven't heard from you in
more than a week. Oh, I've got SUCH a plan, or rather father made it
up, that I am just wild thinking of it. It is this: father's ship,
Wildfire, has sailed from New York for Savannah, and before he left,
father said for me to write and tell you that he couldn't think of
letting me go to Florida next winter unless you came here and spent
this summer with me.

"The Wildfire will leave Savannah for New York again about the 15th of
May, and father wants you to meet him there and come home with him. His
sister, Aunt Emily Coburn, has gone with him for the sake of the
voyage, and she will take care of you.

"Oh, do come! Won't it be splendid? Father is coming home from New
York, so he can bring you all the way. I am sure your mother will let
you come when she knows how nicely everything is planned.

"I have got lots and lots to tell you, but can't think of anything else
now but your coming.

"What an awful time poor Mark has had. I don't see how he ever lived
through it. I think Frank March must be splendid. Write just as quick
as you can, and tell me if you are coming.

"Good-bye. With kisses and hugs, I am your dearest, lovingest friend,

"EDNA MAY."

These two letters from the far North created quite a ripple of
excitement in that Southern household, and furnished ample subject for
discussion when the family was gathered on the front porch in the
evening of the day they were received.

Mr. Elmer said, "I think it would be a good thing for Mark to go, and I
should like to have Ruth go too; but I don't see how you can spare her,
wife."

"I shall miss her dreadfully, but I should feel much easier to think
that she was with Mark on this long journey. Poor boy, he is far from
strong yet. Yes, I think Ruth ought to go. It seems providential that
these two letters should have come together, and as if it were a sign
that the children ought to go together," answered Mrs. Elmer.

Mark, who had listened quietly to the whole discussion, now spoke up
and said, "I should like to go, father. As long as I stay here I shall
keep thinking of that terrible underground river over there. I think of
it and dream of it all the time, and sometimes it seems as if it were
o