I don't believe she will ever get well until she repents and confesses and crosses her heart that she won't do it again. A confession is a grand relief.

Suppose Dr. Parke Alden don't write, don't notice me! I will be that mad and mortified I will wish I was dead. But if he don't answer that letter, I will write a few more things to him before dying, for, if I am an Orphan, I oughtn't to be treated like a piece of imagination.

The black hen has got a lot of little chickens and the jonquils are in bloom. The sun is as warm as June, but I'm shivering all the time, and Miss Katherine says she don't understand me. She gave me a tonic to make me eat more. I don't want to eat. I want a letter.

Jerusalem the Golden! Now, what do you reckon has happened! Nothing will evermore surprise Mary Cary, mostly Martha.

If the moon ever burns, or the stars come to town, or the Pope marries a wife, or the dead come to life, I will just say, "Is that so?" and in my heart I will know a stranger thing than that.

Yesterday Miss Bray sent for me to come to her room. She was sick in bed, and her frizzes weren't frizzed, and she looked so old and pitiful that I took hold of her hand and said, "I'm awful sorry you are sick, Miss Bray."

And what did she do but begin to cry, and such a long crying I never saw anybody have. I knew there was a lot to come out and she'd better get rid of it, so I let it keep on without remarks, and after a while she told me to shut the door, and get her a clean handkerchief out of her top bureau-drawer.

I did it. Then she told me to sit down. I did that, too, and it's well I did. If I hadn't I'd have fell. Her words would have made me.

"Mary Cary," she said, "you have given me a great deal of trouble, and at times you've nearly worried me to death. But never since you've been here have you ever told a story, and that's what I've done." And she put her head down in her pillow, and I tell you she nearly shook herself, out of bed she cried so.

I was so surprised and confused I didn't know whether I was awake or asleep. But all of a sudden it came to me what she meant, and I put my arms around her neck and kissed her. That's what I did, Martha or no Martha; I kissed her. Then I said:

"Miss Bray, I'm awful glad you are sorry you did it. If you're sorry it's like a sponge that wipes it off, and don't anybody but you and me and G.o.d know about that particular one. And we can all forget it, if there's never any more."

And then she cried harder than ever. Regular rivers. I didn't know the top of your head could hold so much water.

But she said there would never be any more, for she'd never had any peace since the way I looked at her that day, and she couldn't stand it any longer. She didn't know why I had that effect on her, but I did, and she'd sent for me to talk about it.

Well, we talked. I told her I didn't think just being sorry was enough, and I asked her how sorry was she.

"I don't know," she said, and then she began on tears again, so I thought I'd better be quick while the feeling lasted.

"Well, you know, Miss Bray," I began, "Pinkie Moore hasn't been adopted yet. She never will be while the ladies think what you told them is true. You ought to write a letter to the Board and tell them what you said wasn't so."

"I can't!" she said; and then more fountains flowed. "I can't tell them I told a story!"

"But that's what you did," I said. "And when you've done a mean thing, there isn't but one way to undo it--own up and take what comes. But it's nothing to a conscience that's got you, and is never going to let you go until you do the square thing. If you want peace, it's the only way to get it."

"But I can't write a letter; I'm so nervous I couldn't compose a line."

And you never would have known her voice. It was as quavery as old Doctor Fleury's, the Methodist preacher who's laid off from work.

"I'll write it for you." And I hopped for the things in her desk. "You can copy it when you feel better." And, don't you know, she let me do it! After three tryings I finished it, then read it out loud:

DEAR LADIES,--If any one applies for Pinkie Moore, I hope you will let her go. Pinkie is the best and most useful girl in the Asylum.

More than two years ago I said differently. It was wrong in me, and Pinkie isn't untruthful. She hasn't a bad temper, and never in her life took anything that didn't belong to her. I am sorry I said what I did. She don't know it and never will, and I hope you will forgive me for saying it.

Respectfully,

MOLLIE E. BRAY.

When I was through she cried still harder, and said she'd lose her place. She knew she would. I told her she wouldn't. I knew she wouldn't.

And after a while she sat up in bed and copied it. Some of her tears blotted it, but I told her that didn't matter, and when I got up to go she looked better already.

I knew how she felt. Like I did when my tooth that had to come out was out. And a thing on your mind is worse than the toothache. One you can tell, the other you can't. A thing you can't tell is like a spook that's always behind you, and right in the bed with you when you wake up sudden, and lies down with you every time you go to sleep. I know, for that letter is on my mind.

When I got out of Miss Bray's room I ran in mine, Miss Katherine being out, and locked the door, and I said:

"Mary Martha Cary, don't ever say again there's no such things as modern miracles. There's been a miracle to-day, and you have seen it. Somebody has been born over." And then, because I couldn't help it, I cried almost as bad as Miss Bray.

But, oh, n.o.body can ever know how much harm it had done me to believe a lady could go through life telling stories, and doing mean, dishonorable things, and not minding. And people treating her just the same as if she were honest!

When I found out it wasn't so--that your sin did make you suffer, and that it did make a difference trying to do right--I felt some of my old Martha-ry scornfulness slipping away. And I got down on my knees, no words, but G.o.d understanding why.

I don't like any kind of bitterness in my heart. I'd rather like people.

But can you like a deceiver? You can't.

Dr. Parke Alden has taken no more notice of me than if I were a Juney-bug.

I wonder if Miss Katherine will ever marry. She wasn't meant to live in an Orphan Asylum. She was meant to be the Lady of the House, and to wear beautiful clothes, and have horses and carriages and children of her own, and to give orders. Instead of that, she is here; but sometimes she has a look on her face which I call "Waiting." Last week I wrote a poem about it. This is it:

"In the winter, by the fireside, when the snow falls soft and white, I am waiting, hoping, longing, but for what I don't know quite.

And when summer's sunshine shimmers, and the birds sing clear and sweet, I am waiting, always waiting, for the joy I hope to meet.

It will be, I think, my husband, and the home he'll make for me; But of his coming or home-making, I as yet no signs do see.

But I still shall keep on waiting, for I know it's true as fate, When you really, truly hustle, things will come if just you'll wait."

I don't think much of that. It sounds like "Dearest Willie, thou hast left us, and thy loss we deeply feel." But I wasn't meant for a poet any more than Miss Katherine for an old maid.

Dr. Parke Alden must be dead. Either that or he's no gentleman, or he didn't get my letter. I wish I hadn't written it. I wish I hadn't let him know I was living. But it was Miss Katherine I was thinking about.

Thank Heaven, I didn't mention her name! He isn't worth thinking about, and I think of nothing else.

XIII

HIS COMING

If I could get out on the roof and shake hands with the stars, or dance with the man in the moon, I might be able to write it down; but everything in me is bubbling and singing so, I can't keep still to write. But I'm bound to put down that he's come. He's come!

He came day before yesterday morning about ten o'clock. I was in the school-room, and Mrs. Blamire opened the door and looked in. "Mary Cary can go to the parlor," she said. "Some one wishes to see her."

I got up and went out, not dreaming who it was, as I was only looking for a letter; and there, standing by a window with his back to me, was a man, and in a minute I knew.

I couldn't move, and I couldn't speak, and Lot's wife wasn't any stiller than I was.

But he heard me come in, and turned, and, oh! it is so strange how right at once you know some things. And the thing I knew was it was all true. That he'd never known about me until he got my letter. For a minute he just looked at me. We didn't either of us say a word, and then he came toward me and held out his hands.

"Mary Cary," he said. And the first thing I knew I was crying fit to break my heart, with my arms around his neck, and he holding me tight in his. His eyes were wet, too. They were. I saw them. He kissed me about fifty times--though maybe not more than twenty--and I had such a strange feeling I didn't know whether I was in my body or not. It was the first time that any one who was really truly my own had ever come to see me since I'd been an Orphan, and every bit of sense I ever had rolled away like the Red Sea waters. Rolled right away.