n supposes
great faith in your friend, in yourself, or in human nature.

Grace, at the moment, was unable to think of anybody whom she could
call from the approaching festivities of holiday life in the cities to
share her snow Patmos with her; so she opened a book for company, and
turned to where her dainty breakfast-table, with its hot coffee and
crisp rolls, stood invitingly waiting for her before the cheerful open
fire.

At this moment, she saw, what she had not noticed before, a letter
lying on her breakfast plate. Grace took it up with an exclamation of
surprise; which, however, was heard only by her canary birds and her
plants.

Years before, when Grace was in the first summer of her womanhood, she
had been very intimate with Walter Sydenham, and thoroughly esteemed
and liked him; but, as many another good girl has done, about those
days she had conceived it her duty not to think of marriage, but
to devote herself to making a home for her widowed father and her
brother. There was a certain romance of self-abnegation in this
disposition of herself which was rather pleasant to Grace, and in
which both the gentlemen concerned found great advantage. As long as
her father lived, and John was unmarried and devoted to her, she had
never regretted it.

Sydenham had gone to seek his fortune in California. He had begged to
keep up intercourse by correspondence; but Grace was not one of those
women who are willing to drain the heart of the man they refuse to
marry, by keeping up with him just that degree of intimacy which
prevents his seeking another. Grace had meant her refusal to be final,
and had sincerely hoped that he would find happiness with some other
woman; and to that intent had rigorously denied herself and him a
correspondence: yet, from time to time, she had heard of him through
an occasional letter to John, or by a chance Californian newspaper.
Since John's marriage had so altered her course of life, Grace had
thought of him more frequently, and with some questionings as to the
wisdom of her course.

This letter was from him; and we shall give our readers the benefit of
it:--

"DEAR GRACE,--You must pardon me this beginning,--in the old style of
other days; for though many years have passed, in which I have been
trying to walk in your ways, and keep all your commandments, I have
never yet been able to do as you directed, and forget you: and here
I am, beginning 'Dear Grace,'--just where I left off on a