and, with divided ways, go each
homeward. Sophie had not returned. I wanted to hear from Miss Axtell.
Last of all walked Aaron. With bent head and slow musingness of step, he
came to his home. I met him at the entrance.

"Are you tired with preaching, Aaron?" I asked.

He looked up, at my unusual accost; and I think there must have been
somewhat unwonted about me, he looked at me so long.

"No," he said, "I've had a pleasant field to-day: there are violets,
even in my pathways, Anna."

"Sophie's a pansy," I said.

"Sophie's a Sharon rose," spake Aaron.

He looked inquiringly at me, and added,--

"And you, Anna?"

"An aloe, Aaron."

He smiled the least in the world, and said,--

"Had I been asked, instead of being the asker, I should have made
answer, 'She's a Japan rose.'"

"Oh, Aaron, no fragrance! that's not complimentary."

"Crush the leaves of heliotrope in the cup, Anna."

I did not understand what he meant, then; perhaps I do not now: some
figure of speech from the Orient, I fancy, with a glow of meaning about
it visible only to poetic vision. I lost my way, blinded in seeking to
penetrate the mystery, and was brought back to Redleaf by two welcome
events: the cup Chloe brought, and the letter Aaron gave, with a
beseeching of pardon for having forgotten to give it in the morning.

I read my letter, interluding it with little commas of sipping at the
cup. It was from my father, very brief, but somewhat stirring. Here it
lies before me now.

"My MYRTLE-VINE,--

"I want you at home. I am well; but that is no reason why I should
not need your greenness on my walls. Come home, dear child, on the
morrow. Do not fail me. You never have; 't would be cruel now, when
spring is coming, the very time of hope. Waitingly,

"Your father,

"JULIUS PERCIVAL."

"What puts you in such a turmoil, Anna?" Aaron asked. "What has happened
at home?"

I thought he had been duly attending to the state of his own inward
hopes and fears, instead of mine. Slightly disconcerted by his gray
eyes, the very same that disturb turbulent boys in church-time, I turned
away from them, went to the door, and leaning against the side thereof,
looking the while up at the sky, I answered,--

"I'm going home on the morrow, Aaron."

"Going home?" he repeated, as if the words had borne an uncertain
import. "Pray tell me, what has occurred?"

"It pleases my father to have me there. He gives no reason."

"Wh