"Always your loving, and now your dreadfully sleepy
"DAUGHTER HAZEL.
"P.S. I think I shall feel better, if I tell you that we all had a very unhappy time two weeks ago. I had a really dreadful heartache, papa, and, for the first time, was homesick for you.
"You see, March and Rose are very proud of spirit, and I don't think they liked it in me because we are rich--but you and I understand each other, don't we? and know that being rich does n't mean anything to us, does it? and then, too, Chi says we 're poor because we have n't so much family to love as the Blossoms have, and that's true, too, is n't it?--and I think that kind of poorness ought to balance our riches, don't you? And--well, I can't explain how it all came about, but now they are willing to let me give them things when I want to, and that makes me very happy, and we are all a great deal happier than we were before, and I'm going to call Mrs. Blossom, 'Mother Blossom,' after this, she says she wants me to, and she takes me in her arms just as she does Rose and Cherry, and we talk things over together; so everything is all right now.
"Please send up my violin by express when you receive this. There is a very good-looking young man, the new neighbor at the seven-gabled-house, and he plays the violin, too, and his mother the piano. Love to Wilkins and Minna-Lu. I 'll send him a present from here--Oh, I forgot! don't forget to write Chi within a week sure, to inform you about the Wishing-Tree, and don't buy any presents for anybody till you hear from him. H.C."
When Mr. Clyde read this long letter at the breakfast table, his face was the despair of Wilkins, who hovered about, seeking, ineffectually, for an excuse to ask about Miss Hazel.
"Doan know what kin' er news Marse John get from little Missy," he told Minna-Lu, the cook; "but he laffed pow'ful part de time, an' den he grow pow'ful sober, an' de fust ting I know, de tears come splashin' onto de paper, an' he speak up rale sharp, 'Wha' fo' yo' hyar, Wilkins?' an' sayin' nuffin', I jes' makes tracks, case I see he wan's nobuddy see dem tears.-- Fo' Gawd, I 'se be glad when little Missy come home."
Mr. Clyde took this manuscript, as he called it, over to the Doctor.
"There, Dick, read that," was all he said.
After the Doctor had read it, he whisked out his handkerchief in a remarkably suspicious manner, and Mr. Clyde busied himself with a medical journal without reading one word, till the Doctor spoke: