swer from Mrs. James. She is just the woman to
help us along. Rachel wants to come! I have spoken to Aunt Huldah. It is
too bad, but I had to be a bit of a hypocrite, to hint that I was rather
poorly, and how nice it would be to have a little help. She had just got
in a new piece to weave, and so was quite ready to take up with my plan.
I shall get well as soon as it will do, for she seems anxious. Aunt has
a stiff way, I know, but there's a warm corner somewhere in her heart,
and we are in it, and you know there's always room for one more."

It was a week, and more, before I got another letter from my scheming
sister. It began this way:--

"Your Rachel is a beauty! Just as sweet and modest as she can be! She is
sitting at the end-window of my room, watching the vessels. I am writing
at the front-window. She has just looked at me. What eyes she has! If
she _only_ knew whom I was writing to! When I see you, I shall tell you
the particulars. But don't come posting home now, and spoil everything.
You shall hear all that is necessary for you to know."

Fanny need not have cautioned me about coming home. It was happiness
enough then to think of Rachel sitting in my sister's room,--of Aunt
Huldah's keen eyes watching her daily life.

"My plan works," writes Fanny, a week afterwards. "Aunt seems to take a
liking to Rachel, which I, if anything, rather discourage, thinking she
will be more likely to stick to it. Rachel is a sister after my own
heart. I do like those people who, while they are so steady and calm,
show by their eyes and the tone of the voice what warm, delicate
feelings they are keeping to themselves! She is one of the real good
kind! What a way she has with her!--I saw her to-day, when she received
a letter from you. It came in one from Mrs. James. I was making believe
read, but peeped at her sideways, just as I have seen you do at the
girls in meeting-time. She slipped yours into her pocket, with such a
blush,--then looked up, sort of scared, to see if I noticed anything;
but I was reading my book. Then she stepped quickly out of the room, and
I saw her, a moment after, go through the garden into the apple-orchard,
and along the path to the low-branching apple-tree, to read it all
alone."

This tree I knew well. It was an irregular old apple-tree, one of whose
branches formed of itself a nice seat, where Fanny and I had often sat
from childhood up.

Afterwards she writes,--

"You have sent Rachel a ring