"Doris, I have a letter from Miss Arabella. Would you not like to come in the study and read it?"
"Oh, yes," and she sprang up with the lightness of a bird.
He had cut around the great black seal. Sometime Doris might be glad to have the letter intact. There were no envelopes then besides those used for state purposes.
"Dear and Respected Sir," it began in the formal, old-fashioned manner. She had been rejoiced to hear of Doris' safe arrival and continued good health, and every day she saw the wisdom of the change, though she had missed the child sorely. Her sister had passed peacefully away soon after the departure of Doris, a loss to be accepted with resignation, since her life on earth had long ceased to have any satisfaction to herself. Her own health was very much broken, and she knew it would not be long before she should join those who had preceded her in a better land. When this occurred there would be some articles forwarded to him for Doris, and again she commended the little girl to his affectionate interest and care, and hoped she would grow into a sweet and useful womanhood and be all her parents could wish if they had lived.
"Dear Miss Arabella!" Doris wiped the tears from her eyes. How strange the little room must look without Miss Henrietta sitting at the window babbling of childish things! "And she is all alone with Barby. How sad it must be. I should not like to live alone."
Unconsciously she drew nearer Uncle Winthrop. He put his arm over her shoulder in a caressing manner, and his heart was moved with sympathy for the solitary lady across the ocean.
Doris thought of Aunt Priscilla and wondered whether she ever was lonesome.
Sunday was still bright, and somehow felt warm when contrasted with the biting weather of the last ten days. The three went to old Trinity Church, that stood then on a corner of Summer Street—a plain wooden building with a gambrel roof, quite as old-fashioned inside as out, and even now three-quarters of a century old. Up to the Revolution the king and the queen, when there was one, had been prayed for most fervently. The Church conceded this point reluctantly, since there were many who doubted the success of the struggle. But the clergy had resigned from King's Chapel and Christ Church. For a long while afterward Dr. Mather Byles had kept himself before the people by his wit and readiness for controversy, and the two old ladies, his sisters, were well known for their adherence to Royalist costumes and the unction with which they prayed for the king in their own house—with open windows, in summer.
In fact, even now Episcopalianism was considered rather foreign than of a home growth. But there had been such a divergence from the old-time faiths that people's prejudices were much softened.
It seemed quite natural again to Doris, and she had no difficulty in finding her places, though Cary offered her his prayer book every time. And it sounded so hearty to say "Amen" to the prayers, to respond to the commandments, and sing some of the old chants.