Family Pride

"I was never so happy in my life as I am now," she wrote. "Indeed, I did not know that a married woman could be so happy; but then every woman has not a Bob for her husband, which makes a vast difference. You ought to see Juno. I know she envies me, though she affects the utmost contempt for matrimony, and reminds me forcibly of the fox and the grapes. You see, Arthur Grey is a failure, so far as Juno is concerned, he having withdrawn from the field and laid himself, with his forty-five years, at the feet of Sybil Grandon, who will be Mrs. Grey, and a bride at Saratoga the coming summer. Juno, I believe, intends going, too, as the bridesmaid of the party; but every year her chances lessen, and I have very little hope that father will ever call other than Bob his son, always excepting Morris, of course, whom he really has adopted in place of Wilford. You don't know, Katy, how much father thinks of you, blessing the day which brought you to us, and saying that if he is ever saved, he shall in a great measure owe it to your sweet influence and consistent life after the great trouble came upon you."

There were tears in Katy's eyes as she read this letter from Bell, and with a mental prayer of thanksgiving that she had been of any use in guiding even one to the Shepherd's fold, she took next the letter whose superscription made her tremble for a moment and turn faint, it brought back so vividly to her mind the daisy-covered grave in Alnwick, whose headstone bore Genevra Lambert's name. Marian, who was now at Annapolis, caring for the returned prisoners, did not write often, and her letters were prized the more by Katy, who read with a heating heart the kind congratulations upon her recent marriage, sent by Marian Hazelton.

"I knew how it would end, even when you were in Georgetown," she wrote, "and I am glad that it is so, praying daily that you may be as happy with Dr. Grant as to remember the sad past only as some dream from which you have awakened. I thank you for your invitation to visit Linwood, and when my work is over I may come for a few weeks and rest in your bird's nest of a home. Thank God the war is ended; but my boys need me yet, and until the last crutch has left the hospital, and the last worn figure gone, I shall stay where duty lies. What my life will henceforth be I do not know, but I have sometimes thought that with the ample funds you so generously bestowed upon me, I shall open a school for orphan children, taking charge myself, and so doing some good. Will you be the lady patroness, and occasionally enliven us with the light of your countenance? I have left the hospital but once since you were here, and then I went to Wilford's grave. Forgive me, Katy, if I did wrong in wishing to kneel once upon the sod which covered him. I prayed for you while there, remembering only that you had been his wife. In a little box where no eyes but mine ever look, there is a bunch of flowers plucked from Wilford's grave. They are faded now and withered, but something of their sweet perfume lingers still; and I prize them as my greatest treasure, for, except the lock of raven hair severed from his head, they are all that is remaining to me of the past, which now seems so far away. It is time to make my nightly round of visits, so I must bid you good-by. The Lord lift up the light of His countenance upon you, and be with you forever.