Before he died he told me all the wonderful things that he had done for me, although I did not deserve it—how he had left me all that money and made you my guardian. I am so glad for that.
He was in terrible pain toward the end, and I don't know what I should have done without dear Miss Merriman who stayed on purpose to help me. I think that God sent her here special. And she has helped me in so many other ways too—especially with my studying. She is sure that I will be able to pass that awful examination, although it frightens me. Oh, if I can, I can take that hospital training and be a nurse at last, for I am rich now. Just think, dear granddaddy left me more than a thousand dollars—and I have my basket money, besides!
And so, dear Donald, the first part of my great dream is really coming true. It isn't just the way I dreamed it, for I didn't mean for granddaddy to be dead; but I guess things never happen just as we plan. When we look forward to something pleasant, which we want very much to happen, we never think that there may be unhappiness mixed with it—perhaps it is better that way, for if we did we wouldn't work so hard to make it come to pass.
I am afraid that I have not said that very well; but I feel that it is so, now. I am going to Boston; I will be near you, and will learn to do the work I love; but now I realize that I could never, never have done it until granddaddy went away. So that is the shadow on my golden dream.
And last night there came the great sorrow that I have been dreading so many months; and yet I know that he is happier, and I have you and Miss Merriman, and the work I am going to do, to make me forget—not him, but my sorrow—and take the pain from my heart.
Little Lou is almost well again, and both she and Judd are going to stay with Mrs. Andrews the rest of the winter. And, oh, Doctor Mac, he has promised me never to make white liquor again.
I have saved the best news for the last. Miss Merriman is going to take me to Boston with her. She says that her family have taken an apartment in the city, and that I may live with them until I get into the hospital. This makes me very happy, and I hope that you will be pleased, too.
I know that everything is going to be very different there in Boston, and that you are so busy that I cannot see you very often, and, besides, when I do get into the hospital I must be careful to remember that you are a very great doctor and I am only one of many probationers (Miss Merriman told me the word). But, although we cannot be chums like we have been, you must never forget that I am always
Your loving foster-sister,
Smiles.