"MY DEAREST PAINTER,—I do not call you Miss Desmond any more. I miss you always, but most I miss you when Cousin Leslie is making the piano talk, because there is only one to listen, and it was two when you were here."
"I got my sofa to take me to see you last night. We were half an hour doing it, for I told nurse not to talk till I told her, and she says it was half an hour by the clock. I tell you what we did, and you must tell me if it was right. We went very quickly and not too high, just on a line with the telegraph wires that I see from the window. I knew they led to London, so I could not go wrong. Then we flew over hundreds and hundreds of roofs, till we came outside your house; then we dropped until I could peep in at the window. And this is what I saw:"
"You were in your pretty pink dressing-gown giving nasty medicine to a little old lady in curls in bed, and she was making faces like I do, and then you laughed at her, and began telling her one of your nonsense stories, and then she drank it up and laughed, too. Then you went into another room, and sat down by the fire and thought of Sunnie, and a nice hot dinner was brought in on a little round table, and you sat up, and eat it."
"When you'd finished, you went back to the fire, and then I crept in at the window, and crept on to your lap. Didn't you feel me cuddle you? You were looking tired and had sad eyes, but I kissed you happy again. And then, I had to come back, and the journey home was long and very cold. My sofa says he doesn't like London, but we shall come and see you again soon. I will make him take me."
"Write me a letter and tell me you will be looking out for me when the fire flares up and the lamps are out. You won't see me, but you will feel me. Nurse has helped me spell this; she says it is all nonsense, but she doesn't understand what you and me and Cousin Leslie make up together. Cousin Leslie played to me about you the day before yesterday. We had the train that took you away and the barrel-organs that played in the London streets when you got there, and the poor, sick lady whispering, and you making her better."
"Write me a long letter soon. I send you this new blessing: I made it up myself yesterday—"
"'God keep you beautiful, and good,
and bring you back to Scotland and us
for ever and ever. Amen.'"
"Your loving"
"SUNNIE."
Miss Lorraine smiled as she handed this back to Jean.
"You have won her heart," she said.
"Every one loves her," was Jean's reply. But there was a wistful look in her eyes as she spoke, that Miss Lorraine noted and remembered.
[CHAPTER XII]
AN EVENTFUL RAILWAY JOURNEY
"It was the Voice of Revelation
That met my utmost need;
The wondrous message of salvation
Was joy and peace indeed."
* * *
"For now is life a lucid story,
And death a rest in Him;
And all is bathed in light and glory
That once was dark or dim."—Rev. Canon Twells.
MISS LORRAINE was now quite convalescent, and Colonel Douglas and she resumed their old friendly relations with one another. She was soon listening to his usual troubles with ungrateful protégés, but her sound common sense and good advice comforted and helped him as she often had before.