ling; then he went on and read the
bulk of it--a loving, sedate, and altogether charming and gracious
piece of handiwork, with a postscript full of affectionate regards
and messages to Tom, and Joe, and Charley, and other close friends and
neighbors.

As the reader finished, he glanced at Tom, and cried out:

"Oho, you're at it again! Take your hands away, and let me see your
eyes. You always do that when I read a letter from her. I will write and
tell her."

"Oh no, you mustn't, Henry. I'm getting old, you know, and any little
disappointment makes me want to cry. I thought she'd be here herself,
and now you've got only a letter."

"Well, now, what put that in your head? I thought everybody knew she
wasn't coming till Saturday."

"Saturday! Why, come to think, I did know it. I wonder what's the matter
with me lately? Certainly I knew it. Ain't we all getting ready for her?
Well, I must be going now. But I'll be on hand when she comes, old man!"

Late Friday afternoon another gray veteran tramped over from his cabin a
mile or so away, and said the boys wanted to have a little gaiety and
a good time Saturday night, if Henry thought she wouldn't be too tired
after her journey to be kept up.

"Tired? She tired! Oh, hear the man! Joe, YOU know she'd sit up six
weeks to please any one of you!"

When Joe heard that there was a letter, he asked to have it read, and
the loving messages in it for him broke the old fellow all up; but he
said he was such an old wreck that THAT would happen to him if she only
just mentioned his name. "Lord, we miss her so!" he said.

Saturday afternoon I found I was taking out my watch pretty often. Henry
noticed it, and said, with a startled look:

"You don't think she ought to be here soon, do you?"

I felt caught, and a little embarrassed; but I laughed, and said it was
a habit of mine when I was in a state of expenctancy. But he didn't seem
quite satisfied; and from that time on he began to show uneasiness. Four
times he walked me up the road to a point whence we could see a long
distance; and there he would stand, shading his eyes with his hand, and
looking. Several times he said:

"I'm getting worried, I'm getting right down worried. I know she's not
due till about nine o'clock, and yet something seems to be trying
to warn me that something's happened. You don't think anything has
happened, do you?"

I began to get pretty thoroughly ashamed of him for his childishness;
and at