Pushing aside her papers, she discovered two unopened letters which Mr. Lescom had handed her, and which she had in the hurry of finishing her next article, quite forgotten. Breaking the seal of the first, she read as follows:
“To ‘Floy.’
“I am rough old man, Miss, and not used to writing or talking to ladies. I don’t know who you are, and I don’t ask; but I take ‘The Standard,’ and I like your pieces. I have a family of bouncing girls and boys; and when we’ve all done work, we get round the fire of an evening, while one of us reads your pieces aloud. It may not make much difference to you what an old man thinks, but I tell you those pieces have got the real stuff in ’em, and so I told my son John the other night; and he says, and I say, and neighbor Smith, who comes in to hear ’em, says, that you ought to make a book of them, so that your readers may keep them. You can put me down for three copies, to begin with; and if every subscriber to ‘The Standard’ feels as I do, you might make a plum by the operation. Suppose, now, you think of it?
“N. B.—John says, maybe you’ll be offended at my writing to you, but I say you’ve got too much common sense.
“Yours to command,
“John Stokes.”
“Well, well,” said Ruth, laughing, “that’s a thought that never entered this busy head of mine, John Stokes. I publish a book? Why, John, are you aware that those articles were written for bread and butter, not fame; and tossed to the printer before the ink was dry, or I had time for a second reading? And yet, perhaps, there is more freshness about them than there would have been, had I leisure to have pruned and polished them—who knows? I’ll put your suggestion on file, friend Stokes, to be turned over at my leisure. It strikes me, though, that it will keep awhile. Thank you, honest John. It is just such readers as you whom I like to secure. Well, what have we here?” and Ruth broke the seal of the second letter. It was in a delicate, beautiful, female hand; just such an one as you, dear Reader, might trace, whose sweet, soft eyes, and long, drooping tresses, are now bending over this page. It said:
“Dear ‘Floy’:
“For you are ‘dear’ to me, dear as a sister on whose loving breast I have leaned, though I never saw your face. I know not whether you are young and fair, or old and wrinkled, but I know that your heart is fresh, and guileless, and warm as childhood’s; and that every week your printed words come to me, in my sick chamber, like the ministrations of some gentle friend, sometimes stirring to its very depths the fountain of tears, sometimes, by odd and quaint conceits, provoking the mirthful smile. But ‘Floy,’ I love you best in your serious moods; for as earth recedes, and eternity draws near, it is the real and tangible, my soul yearns after. And sure I am, ‘Floy,’ that I am not mistaken in thinking that we both lean on the same Rock of Ages; both discern, through the mists and clouds of time, the Sun of Righteousness. I shall never see you, ‘Floy,’ on earth;—mysterious voices, audible only to the dying ear, are calling me away; and yet, before I go, I would send you this token of my love, for all the sweet and soul-strengthening words you have unconsciously sent to my sick chamber, to wing the weary, waiting hours. We shall meet, ‘Floy’; but it will be where ‘tears are wiped away.’
“God bless you, my unknown sister.