"Paula!"
I tried to explain, but at this minute Teresa entered, bringing with her a plateful of delicious apples.
"Come, come, Catalina!" and her deep, sonorous voice seemed like soothing balm, as her presence appeared to fill the room. "What on earth are you crying about? It is but a short moment ago that I secured permission from your papa to read you a letter which he has just received from Italy, and I went out to pick up some of your favorite apples, the first of the season, and here I come to find you crying!"
Catalina became a little calmer hearing the word "letter," for, to the poor confined invalid, a letter from abroad was a great event. Nevertheless, between her sobs she remarked, "Is it a letter about this terrible 'Paula' that they are talking about?"
"Yes," answered Teresa, with that soothing voice of hers. "It's a letter that tells us a bit about a niece of your poor mother."
Catalina calmed down completely. If the memory of our mother still lived in the heart of her other daughters it had first place above all else with Catalina.
"Now, read it to me, Catalina," said Teresa. "You can do so much better than I can in the reading line, and it will sound so much better from your lips than from my poor stumbling ones. Wait till I fix up the pillows, and don't cry any more. And now your headache is better, isn't it?"
"It still pains terribly, Teresa. Let Rosa read it."
Rosa took the letter, and read in her clear, sweet voice the lines that had so stirred us all.
There were but few details. Our Uncle John had died; so wrote the pastor of the little church in that far-off Waldensian Valley. He had died as he had lived—a real Christian. He had no near relatives, it appeared; and the rest of the family had gone to America two years before. Paula, therefore, was alone. Just before breathing his last, my uncle had expressed the desire to leave his daughter in the care of our father whom he had never known, but of whom he had heard nothing but good. Beside all this he had left his daughter in the hands of God, the loving Father of all orphans, praying Him to guide and direct in the whole affair. His last prayer had been for us; asking God to bless our family that we might all be guided into the straight and narrow Way that leadeth unto life eternal. Then followed certain details relative to a small inheritance that Paula possessed, and the prayer of the Pastor himself that the temporal and spiritual happiness of the little orphan might be maintained.