ows:

"MY LONG-LOST JENNIE,--Remember my charming little playmate?
Remember the one object that makes my childhood a bright picture
to look back upon? Of course I do, with all the pleasure in the
recollection that her presence used to inspire in those happy days.
Remember the diabolical exploit with Jones's eggs? Distinctly. And
the telegraph system? I believe I could go through the alphabet
now. And I remember, too, that day on the skating-pond, with
contrition, however, and a prayer that my heartlessness may be
forgiven. How can I ever have been unkind to my faithful Jennie?
Nor have I forgotten--how could I?--our tender parting. You said
that you could never forget me, and now your letter proves that you
were sincere; and I hope my answer may convince you that when I
told you of my never-failing constancy I spoke the truth.

"It is a delightful surprise to me to have heard from you at last.
The years that I have been thinking and dreaming of you and wishing
for news of you are over, and now I have at last found the idol of
my boyish admiration.

"But you must have changed as well as I in all this time. I should
like very much to have a likeness of you as you are now, to compare
with that which is indelibly stamped on my memory. Won't you send
me one?

"It surprises me that in recalling those experiences of ours you
should have omitted the one that is most vivid and most delightful
to me. Can it be that you have forgotten the little house we built
under the old chestnut-tree, where you prepared the supper on your
best doll's china for the weary hunter who used to return laden
with green apples, currants, strawberries, and other wild beasts,
the spoils of his chase? How generous and self-sacrificing you used
to be with the slender provisions, and anxious lest the foot-sore
huntsman should not get enough to sustain his toilsome existence!
What an example you were of domesticity! and I cannot believe that
you are anything else to-day but the same good pattern for
womanhood.

"Do let me hear from you soon again. Although I have existed so
long in ignorance even as to whether you were still alive, the
knowledge now that you are so, and that you have still a corner in
your memory, if not in your heart, for me, has revived all my old