ng increased, and did not even ask 'Who's there?' before I
opened the door. But I _was_ relieved to find Morris, covered with snow,
looking like a storm king. He said he had heard through Frank Grey that
Josie couldn't come and he would not let me stay alone in a storm. I was
so glad, if I had been you I should have danced around him, but as it was
I and not you I only said how glad I was, and made him a cup of
steaming coffee and gave him a piece of mince pie for being so good.
To-day it snows harder than ever, so that we do not expect father and
mother; and Mr. Holmes has not come out in the storm, because Morris saw
him and told him that he was on the way home. Not a sleigh has passed,
we have not seen a single human being to-day. I could not have got out to
the stable, and I don't know what the cows and hens would have done
without Morris. He has thrown down more hay for the cows, and put corn
where the hens may find it for to-morrow, in case he cannot get out to
them. The storm has not lessened in any degree; I never knew anything
like it, but I am not the 'oldest inhabitant.' Wouldn't I have been
dreary here alone?

"This does seem to be a kind of adventure, but nothing happens. Father is
not strong enough to face any kind of a storm, and I am sure they will
not attempt to start. Morris says we are playing at housekeeping and he
helps me do everything, and when I sit down to sew on your patch work he
reads to me. I let him read this letter to you, forgetting what I had
said about my Prince, but he only laughed and said he was glad that he
was _good_ enough for me, even if he were not handsome enough, or learned
enough, or devoted enough, and said he would become devoted forthwith,
but he could not ever expect to attain to the rest. He teases me and says
that I meant that the others were not good enough. He has had a letter
from Will promising to take him before the mast next voyage and he is
hilarious over it. His mother tries to be satisfied, but she is afraid of
the water. When so many that we know have lost father or brother or
husband on the sea it does seem strange that we can so fearlessly send
another out. Mrs. Rheid told me about a sea captain that she met when she
was on a voyage with Captain Rheid. He had been given up for lost when he
was young and when he came back he found his wife married to another man,
but she gave up the second husband and went back to the first. She was
dead when Mrs. Rheid met hi