"For the same reason she had, I suppose,—" said Faith half laughing, though witnesses of another kind were in her eyes.
"Who are you talking about?"
"Your sister."
"Why don't you begin to practise your lesson?"
Perhaps Faith thought that she was. She looked at nothing but her letter.
"Will you wait for your messages till we get home?—this place not being absolute seclusion."
"Shall I read this now?" said Faith rather hastily.
"I should think there would be no danger in that."
With somewhat unsteady fingers, that yet tried to be quiet, Faith broke the seal; and masking her glowing face with one hand, she bent over the letter to read it.
"My very dear, and most unknown, and most well-known little sister! I have had a picture sent me of you—as you appeared one night, when you sat for your portrait, hearing Portia; and with it a notice of several events which occurred just before that time. And both picture and events have gone down into my heart, and abide there. Endecott says you are a Sunbeam—and I feel as if a little of the light had come over the water to me,—ever since his letter came I have been in a state of absolute reflection!