ight sound against her
door made her look that way apprehensively and wish that she had
barricaded it as on the night before.

Something white caught her eye. It was paper being slowly pushed beneath
the door and now an envelope was revealed. Geraldine started up and
noiselessly crept toward it. Seizing it she carried it to the light. It
was a letter addressed to herself:

_Miss Geraldine Melody_

And down in the left-hand corner were the words--_"Kindness of Mr.
Barry."_ Across the face of the envelope was scrawled in another hand
these words: "Courage. Walk in meadow. Wear white."

Geraldine stared at this with her swollen eyes, the aftermath of her
wild weeping causing convulsive catches in her throat which she stifled
automatically. Turning the envelope over she saw that it was sealed
clumsily with red wax.

Running a hairpin through the flap she opened it and took out the letter
with trembling hands. This is what she read:

DEAR MISS MELODY:

I can't help worrying about you, not knowing what you found when
you got to the farm, and whether Mr. Carder and his mother turned
out to be the kind you like to live with. I've wished a hundred
times that I'd brought you home with me instead of letting you go,
because, after all the hard experiences you went through, I wanted
to be sure that you found care and protection where you was going.
I'm poor and have only a small place, but I'd have found some way
to take care of you.

I worried so much about it, and Mr. Carder, the little I saw of him
that day at the hotel, acted so much as if he owned you, that I
thought it would be just as well to hear what a lawyer would say;
so I went to see Benjamin Barry. He's studying to be a lawyer and
he's the young man who has consented to hunt up the Carder farm
and take my letter to you. I know it ain't etiket to seal up a
letter you send by hand, but I'm going to seal this with wax just
so you'll know that Ben hasn't read it. After your experience with
men it will be hard for you to trust any man, I'm pretty sure. So I
just want to tell you that I've known Ben Barry from a baby and
he's the cleanest, _finest_ boy in the world. You can't always tell
whether he's in fun or in earnest, because he's a great one to
joke; but his folks are the finest that you could find anywhere.
He's got good blood and he's been brough