orning."

"No--excuse me--you are not," said Miss Grace, shaking her head at
him, laughing, but decisive. "I have my bicycle. I can go there and
back in next to no time. With shaking wits and hands you are not
fit! Besides, what would Mrs. Dawson do all the evening without you?
No, Mr. Dawson, you write the letter and I will do the rest."

She put paper and pens and ink before him on a little table out in
the porch, and she and Patience kept very quiet so that they might
not interrupt him; but it was no good, he could not write, he really
was too much excited and overcome. So at last Miss Grace wrote a
little letter for him, one that brought satisfaction to both of them.
It expressed their amazement, their joy and excitement, and sent
their dearest love, and some little news of them. "Your granny is
stronger and more active than she has been for a long time," she
wrote, "and perhaps your coming will make her quite well and able to
get about again." She felt she ought to prepare Jessie for some of
the change she would see.

"There, that is the business part, as you might call it," she said,
placing the letter in an envelope, "but I am sure she will worry if
there isn't a word from you, Mr. Dawson. Can you write just a tiny
message to slip in with mine?--just to say how glad you are."

"Glad!" cried Thomas; "glad is a poor kind of word for what I feel!"
He had recovered a little, and was as gay as a schoolboy just getting
ready for the holidays. He pulled a piece of paper towards him, and
squaring his elbows, he wrote in large round hand:

"Come home quick to granp, and I'll be there to meet you--
same as before."
"Your loving grandfather,"
"T. Dawson."

"I haven't wrote a letter before for nigh 'pon twenty years, I
b'lieve," he gasped, mopping his brow and stretching his arms with
relief, "and now 'tisn't much of a one. I'm out of practice, but the
little maid'll understand," and he chuckled happily as he handed it
to Miss Grace. "Yes, she'll understand."

Jessie did understand. When the two letters reached her she danced
about the house with glad excitement, then flew to Miss Patch to tell
her all about them, and about that first meeting with granp at
Springbrook station.

Miss Patch listened and sympathized, and rejoiced, too, and in her
calm, sweet old face she showed none of the pain which was filling
her own poor heart. She was lo