My heart runs over with grat.i.tude. My soul is on its knees in thankfulness all the time. I believe I am the happiest woman in the world. "The truest and best of men" sits across the room writing letter after letter, clearing up a delayed correspondence. He is handsomer than on that day when I first looked in his eyes, and knew in an instant that he was my fate, that I should wors.h.i.+p him forever, whether he knew it or not; that if he did not ask me to be his wife, I should never be a wife, but by myself should walk through life bearing my burdens as humbly and bravely as I could, and keeping my heart warm by the flame in the vestal lamp which his smile had kindled within it.

Now heaven has opened to me, and so jubilant is my heart that I can feel it throbbing as I write, and with a thankfulness unspeakable I wors.h.i.+p at my hero's feet.

With warmest love to you, dear sister, and to your husband and Auntie, in which my other self joins heartily, I am

Your loving sister,

MILDRED BREWSTER HARDING.

P. S.--Sister: This morning as we sat here I asked my lord why he and your husband clasped hands over our father's coffin.

Waiting a moment, he answered that on the journey East with father's body, your husband and himself made a covenant together that henceforth, whatever might happen, they would watch over us as a sacred trust received from our father, and that the hand-clasp was but an involuntary pledge of the sincerity of that compact.

Can we ever be good enough wives to these men who do not half realize how grand they are?

Love and kisses,

MILDRED.