by an all-rail route in about twelve hours.
Calling at the post-office for the family mail, she found there a
letter from her mother, which she tore open in great excitement. It was
written in an unpracticed hand and badly spelled, and was in effect as
follows:--

MY DEAR DAUGHTER,--I take my pen in hand to let you know that I am not
very well. I have had a kind of misery in my side for two weeks, with
palpitations of the heart, and I have been in bed for three days. I'm
feeling mighty poorly, but Dr. Green says that I'll get over it in a
few days. Old Aunt Zilphy is staying with me, and looking after things
tolerably well. I hope this will find you and John enjoying good
health. Give my love to John, and I hope the Lord will bless him and
you too. Cousin Billy Oxendine has had a rising on his neck, and has
had to have it lanced. Mary B. has another young one, a boy this time.
Old man Tom Johnson was killed last week while trying to whip black Jim
Brown, who lived down on the Wilmington Road. Jim has run away. There
has been a big freshet in the river, and it looked at one time as if
the new bridge would be washed away.

Frank comes over every day or two and asks about you. He says to tell
you that he don't believe you are coming back any more, but you are to
remember him, and that foolishness he said about bringing you back from
the end of the world with his mule and cart. He's very good to me, and
brings over shavings and kindling-wood, and made me a new well-bucket
for nothing. It's a comfort to talk to him about you, though I haven't
told him where you are living.

I hope this will find you and John both well, and doing well. I should
like to see you, but if it's the Lord's will that I shouldn't, I shall
be thankful anyway that you have done what was the best for yourselves
and your children, and that I have given you up for your own good.

Your affectionate mother,
MARY WALDEN.

Rena shed tears over this simple letter, which, to her excited
imagination, merely confirmed the warning of her dream. At the date of
its writing her mother had been sick in bed, with the symptoms of a
serious illness. She had no nurse but a purblind old woman. Three
days of progressive illness had evidently been quite sufficient to
reduce her parent to the condition indicated by the third dream. The
thought that her mother might die without the presence of any one who
loved her