audacious and thoughtless, but a blow coming
through Grif would crush her to the earth.

"You--you mustn't set your heart too much upon his getting the letter
in the morning, Dolly," she said. "He might be away when it came, or--or
twenty things, and he might not see it until night, but--"

"Well," said Dolly, "I will write it at once if you will give me the pen
and ink. The earlier it is posted the earlier he will get it."

She tried to rise then; but when she stood up her strength seemed to
fail her, and she staggered and caught at Aimee's arm. But the next
minute she laughed.

"How queer that one little faint should make me so weak!" she said. "I
am weak,--actually. I shall feel right enough when I sit down, though."

She sat down at the table with her writing materials, and Aimee remained
upon the sofa watching her. Her hand trembled when she wrote the first
few lines, but she seemed to become steadier afterward, and her pen
dashed over the paper without a pause for a few minutes. The spot of
color on her cheeks faded and burned by turns,--sometimes it was gone,
and again it was scarlet, and before the second page was finished tears
were falling soft and fast. Once she even stopped to wipe them away,
because they blinded her; but when she closed the envelope she did not
look exactly unhappy, though her whole face was tremulous.

"He will come back," she said, softly. "He will come back when he reads
this, I know. I wish it was to-morrow. To-morrow night he will be here,
and we shall have our happy evening after all. I can excuse myself to
Miss MacDowlas for another day."

"Yes," said Aimee, a trifle slowly, as she took _it_ from her hand. "I
will send Belinda out with it now." And she carried it out of the room.

In a few minutes she returned. "She has taken it," she said. "And now
you had better go to bed, Dolly."

But Dolly's color had faded again, and she was resting her forehead
upon her hands, with a heavy, anxious, worn look, which spoke of sudden
reaction. She lifted her face with a half-absent air.

"I hope it will be in time for to-night's post," she said. "Do you think
it will?"

"I am not quite sure, but I hope so. You must come to bed, Dolly."

She got up without saying more, and followed her out into the hall, but
at the foot of the staircase she stopped. "I have not seen Tod," she
said. "Let us go into 'Toinette's room and ask her to let us have him
to-night. We can carry him up-stairs wit