has water to it.

We had apple-dumplings for dinner. I sold mine to Lucy Pyle for two
cents, and bought a stamp with it. The stamp is for The Letter.

Miss Katherine has come back. Came night before last, but I've been too
excited to write anything down. Everything I do is done in dabs these
days, and few lines at the time is all I'm equal to.

She looks grand. And oh, what a difference her being here makes! We are
children, not just orphans, when she is with us; and it's because she
loves us, trusts us, brings our best part to the top that we are
different when she is about. The very way she laughs--so clear and
hearty--makes you think things aren't so bad, and already they have
picked up. Like my primrose does when I give it water, after forgetting
it till it is as limp as old Miss Sarah Cone's crepe veil.

I haven't told her anything yet, but I've been watching good. I haven't
seen any particular signs of memories and regrets, she being too busy to
have them since she got back. Still, I believe they are there, and I'm
that afraid I'll say Parke Alden in my sleep I put the covering over my
head, for fear she'd hear me if I did.

I am back in her room, and this afternoon she asked me what I was
looking at her so hard for. I told her she was the best thing to look
at that came my way, and she laughed and called me a foolish child. But
Mary Cary is thinking, and she isn't telling all she thinks about,
either.

Well, it's written. That letter is written and gone. It was to Dr. Parke
Alden. I sent it to his hospital in Michigan. I made it short, because
by nature I write just endless, having gotten in the habit from making
up stories for the girls and scribbling them off when kept in, which in
the past was frequent. This is what I wrote:

DR. PARKE ALDEN:

_Dear Sir_,--Eleven weeks and two days ago I heard you did not know
I was living. I am. I live in the Yorkburg Female Orphan Asylum,
and have been living here for nine years and four months and almost
a week. If you had known I was living all these years and had not
made yourself acquainted with me, I would not now write you. But I
heard, by accident, you did not know I had been born, so I am
writing to tell you I was. It happened in Natchez, Miss. I know
that much, but little more, except my father was an actor. I
worship his memory. My mother was named Mary Alden, and you are her
brother. If you would lik