yet of which some woman didn't
say she couldn't see what he saw," said Cranston, deprecatingly; and
then, with one of his whimsical grins, began to add, "Let's see, wasn't
it Kitty Benton who said, when she heard of our engagement, that
she----" But he got no further in face of his wife's impetuous outbreak:

"That's simply hateful in you, Wilbur, and you know it as well as I do.
She knew me only slightly, for we were not in the same set at school at
all----"

"Well,--still, didn't she know you rather better than you do Miss
Quimby, whom you never saw at all?"

"I don't care. I know what she's like," answered Mrs. Meg, with flushing
cheeks. And that was really before poor Almira's first letter came, and
if Mrs. Cranston thought she was right before, she knew it when she read
now.

The closing paragraph of a long, almost incoherent missive must suffice.
Even Cranston's lips twitched under the heavy thatch of his moustache as
he listened. Even we, who like Mrs. Cranston, must admit it wasn't quite
kind in her, no matter how natural, to read it afterward to Agatha
Loomis, who, although declining to read, did not quite decline to hear
at least a line or two.

"If you knew how I suffered--what tortures of anxiety, what
nights of sleeplessness and woe, tossing on fevered pillow,
tortured with visions of my beloved nobly fallen on the field
of battle and pining for the touch of this hand--you would
indeed pity me; but my father is inflexible. He refuses his
daughter the poor boon of flying to the stricken lover's
side,--her husband that is to be. In vain have I pointed out
that I ask no sweeter bliss than to share my Percy's lot, for
weal or woe, to live in the humblest cot, a tent, a hovel even,
with only a crust,--it meets only his scornful refusal. When my
arms are eagerly outstretched to enfold my soldier hero, I have
to be content with nursing day and night his afflicted mother,
whom for his sake I love as I would my own, had she not been
taken from me years ago when I was but an unsophisticated
child. When I think of you privileged to sit by his delirious
bedside, cooling his fevered brow, I envy you as I never
thought to envy any woman on earth since, long years ago, my
Percy blessed me with his love; and now if after all he should
be taken, or if some proud lady should win him from his simple
little village maid,