ow her letter had been carelessly forgotten.

"Do you remember the address?" and Alice waited curiously for the
answer.

"Yes, 'A.E.R. Snowdon.' You came from Snowdon Miss Johnson, and I've
wanted so much to ask if you knew 'A.E.R.,' but have never dared talk
freely with you till to-day."

Alice was confounded. Surely the leadings of Providence were too plainly
evident to be unnoticed. There was a reason why Adah Hastings must go to
Anna Richards, and Alice hastened to reply: "'A.E.R.' is no less a
person than Anna Richards whose mother and brother are now at Saratoga."

"Oh, I can't go there. They are too proud. They would hate me for
Willie, and ask me for his father."

Very gently Alice talked to her of Snowdon and Anna Richards, whom Adah
was sure to like.

"I'm so glad for your sake that it has come around at last," she said.
"Will you write to her to-day, or shall I for you? Perhaps I had
better!"

"Oh, no, I would rather go unannounced--rather Miss Anna should like me
for my self, if I go," and Adah's voice trembled, for she shrank
nervously from the thought of meeting the Richards family.

If 'Lina liked the old lady, she certainly could not, and the very
thought of these elder sisters, in all their primness, dismayed and
disheartened her.

While this was passing through her mind, she sat twining Willie's silken
curls around her finger, and apparently listening to what Alice was now
saying of Dr. Richards; but Alice might as well have talked to the winds
for any impression she made. Adah was looking far into the future,
wondering what it had in store for her, as if in Anna Richards she would
indeed find the sympathizing friend which Alice said she would.
Gradually, as she thought of Anna, her heart went out strangely toward
her.

"I will go to Miss Richards," she said at last; "but I cannot go till
Hugh is better, till he knows and approves. I must take his blessing
with me. Do you think it will be long before he regains his reason?"

Alice could not tell.

"Do you correspond with Miss Richards?" Adah suddenly asked.

"No. I will send a note of introduction by you, though."

"Please don't," and Adah spoke pleadingly. "I should have to give it if
you did, and I'd rather go by myself. I know it would be better to have
your influence, but it is a fancy of mine not to say that I ever knew
you or any one at Spring Bank."

Now it was settled that Adah should go, she felt a restless, impatient
desir