"WILLMAR COURT,
- DEVON.
"My dear Carol,
"Something so wonderful and beautiful has happened. Yet I should not perhaps use the word 'wonderful,' since nothing can be lost when Mind governs and controls. The letter which your dear father wrote me just before his death has at last reached me.
"Evidently through a mistake at the sorting office it was slipped into the American mail-bag at Gibraltar instead of the English. My name and address are almost stamped out, it has been to so many places in the United States of America and was afterwards sent on to Canada, where it has also visited many post-offices, before some postmaster or post-mistress remembered that S. Devon is part of an English county.
"A letter so important for your future, dear, could not be lost. I am sending it for Mrs. Mandeville to read, as it is necessary for her and also your Uncle Raymond to know the contents. They will, I am sure, observe their brother's last wishes; and one is, that no hindrance or impediment shall be put in the way of your studying the Science which has healed you. I am to buy a new copy of Science and Health, and write in it: 'To Carol--from Father.' You see, dear, Love has found a way, and just the most beautiful way of restoring to you the book you seemed to have lost, for a time at least.
"Dearly as you have valued the book before, it will have an added value with the knowledge that it comes to you expressly by your dear father's desire. Mrs. Mandeville will, no doubt, let you read (or read to you) the letter before returning it to me. You will rejoice to learn how much you were in your father's thoughts at the last. I have ordered a copy of the book. You will receive it in a very short time. I know how glad you will be to be able to study the Lesson-Sermons again. How nice it will be for you and Eloise to do them sometimes together! Dear little girl! Give her many loving thoughts from me. We miss her very much. Bob's affections seem about equally divided between his young master and 'the little lady' as he calls her.
"Always in thought and deed, dear Carol,
Your loving cousin,
ALICIA DESMOND."