he says he has done more than all
he ever hoped; his letters are full of jokes, full of spirit. Ah, he
little knows,--and how can I tell him?"

"Child, you needn't yet. You can jest kind o' prepare his mind a
little."

"Aunt Roxy, have you spoken of my case to any one,--have you told what
you know of me?"

"No, child, I hain't said nothin' more than that you was a little weakly
now and then."

"I have such a color every afternoon," said Mara. "Grandpapa talks about
my roses, and Captain Kittridge jokes me about growing so handsome;
nobody seems to realize how I feel. I have kept up with all the strength
I had. I have tried to shake it off, and to feel that nothing was the
matter,--really there is nothing much, only this weakness. This morning
I thought it would do me good to walk down here. I remember times when I
could ramble whole days in the woods, but I was so tired before I got
half way here that I had to stop a long while and rest. Aunt Roxy, if
you would only tell grandpapa and grandmamma just how things are, and
what the danger is, and let them stop talking to me about wedding
things,--for really and truly I am too unwell to keep up any longer."

"Well, child, I will," said Miss Roxy. "Your grandfather will be
supported, and hold you up, for he's one of the sort as has the secret
of the Lord,--I remember him of old. Why, the day your father and mother
was buried he stood up and sung old China, and his face was wonderful to
see. He seemed to be standin' with the world under his feet and heaven
opening. He's a master Christian, your grandfather is; and now you jest
go and lie down in the little bedroom, and rest you a bit, and by and
by, in the cool of the afternoon, I'll walk along home with you."

Miss Roxy opened the door of a little room, whose white fringy
window-curtains were blown inward by breezes from the blue sea, and laid
the child down to rest on a clean sweet-smelling bed with as deft and
tender care as if she were not a bony, hard-visaged, angular female, in
a black mohair frisette.

She stopped a moment wistfully before a little profile head, of a kind
which resembles a black shadow on a white ground. "That was Hitty!" she
said.

Mara had often seen in the graveyard a mound inscribed to this young
person, and heard traditionally of a young and pretty sister of Miss
Roxy who had died very many years before. But the grave was overgrown
with blackberry-vines, and gray moss had grown into the