"'At the shining of the river, lay we every burden down.'
"The wide silvery tracks that the crescent moon and the wharf lights made reassured me, and I stopped worrying about the future, and laid my burden of apprehension and depression right down, and just sat and enjoyed the sight. Presently I saw a little launch put out from the wharf and go chugging merrily over towards the far side, and suddenly I realized that that other shore was Kentucky. I was in sight of my Promised Land, although my particular portion of it was several hundred miles away. I had been so occupied with other things that I had forgotten what part of the map I was on.
"I stood right up, so excited that I could hardly keep from squealing and whirling around on my toes, as I used to do. My first impulse was to run and tell somebody of my discovery. Then I remembered with a sort of shock that there wasn't anybody I could tell. Not a soul in the whole city who cared. For a moment that thought made me utterly and wretchedly homesick. But it all passed away the moment I began my letter to Jack and Betty. I think the reason that this epistle to you has grown longer and more garrulous than usual, is because you have assured me so often of your interest in all my comings and goings, and it seems so good to pour out everything to somebody who cares to hear. So, I am sure, you will rejoice with me in the discovery that my back window looks away to the dim shores of my Promised Land, and that that view will help me 'to hold out faithful to the end,' as old Brother Petree used to say in prayer meeting."
"June 22.
"I didn't intend to write so soon again, but your letter has just come with all those kodak pictures of your bachelor quarters, and the big dam, and the different views of your mountain background. I am so glad to have them, especially the ones that have you in them, and most especially that one of you in the camp chair with the hat on the back of your head. You look exactly as if you were about to speak, and I have stood that one on my table, and am looking at it now as I write. I am glad you sent it, for really I am becoming so engrossed with my new work, that I need some reminder of my past life to keep me from forgetting what manner of person I used to be. I have had such an absorbing week.
"To begin with, I found that Mrs. Blythe, who is comparatively a young woman, although she has two sons away at school, is one of the old Warwick Hall girls. She wears the alumni pin, with Edryn's crest on it and the motto 'I keep tryste.' And she adores Madam Chartley and everything connected with the school. After I discovered that I knew everything would be all right no matter what she set me to doing.
"She had a dressmaker there fitting a gown for her, when I was ushered into her room, and there wasn't a thing in it to suggest her need of a secretary except a frivolous looking little desk in one corner. She talked to me about Warwick Hall all the time she was being fitted until a neighbor dropped in to ask her to pour tea for her at an informal reception next day. I 'sized her up,' as the boys say, as a pretty little woman fond of dainty clothes and good times, one who would always shine at a social function and be popular because she is such a winsome, sweet little thing, but not much more than that.
"When the dressmaker left, Mrs. Blythe crossed over to the desk and opened it, and it was so chuck full of papers and letters and business-like looking legal documents, that they began to pour out all over the floor.
"She said in a laughing way that that was the reason she needed another pair of hands, and then turned and gave me a searching look with those dark eyes of her, as if she were taking my measure, and said:
"'I hope that Madam Chartley was not mistaken and that you will prove equal to the task, for it is a big undertaking I've called you to help me with—The awakening of a State!'