talisman.  I am a big, awkward fellow, and she is a zephyr that is content to blow about me out of sheer good will to all human kind.  But, in school, I write notes to another girl, to my mother.  And I write them when I have nothing to say but that I am well and strong and happy, content with the present, hopeful for the future, looking forward to the day when you will see me captain of as fine a ship as ever sailed the seas.  And won’t I bring you good things from every country in the world, just because you are such a blessed mother to

“Your unworthy boy,

“M.K.”

* * * * *

“New York, Jan. 30, 18—.

“MY MARJORIE: 

“Your long letter has been read and re-read, and then read aloud to Linnet.  She laughed over it, and brushed her eyes over it; and then it was laid away in my archives for future reference.  It is a perfect afternoon, the sun is shining, and the pavements are as dry as in May.  Linnet endeavored to coax me out, as it is her holiday afternoon, and Broadway will be alive with handsome dresses and handsome faces, and there are some new paintings to be seen.  But I was proof against her coaxing as this unwritten letter pressed on my heart, so she has contented herself with Helen’s younger sister, Nannie, and they will have a good time together and bring their good time home to me, for Nannie is to come home to dinner with her.  Linnet looked like a veritable linnet in her brown suit with the crimson plume in her brown hat; I believe the girl affects grays and brown with a dash of crimson, because they remind her of a linnet, and she is like a linnet in her low, sweet voice, not strong, but clear.  She will be a lovely, symmetrical woman when she comes out of the fire purified.  How do I know she will ever be put in any furnace?  Because all God’s children must suffer at some times, and then they know they are his children.  And she loves Will so vehemently, so idolatrously, that I fear the sorrow may be sent through him; not in any withdrawing of his love, he is too thoroughly true for that, not in any great wickedness he may commit, he is too humble and too reliant upon the keeping power of God to be allowed to fall into that, but—­she may not have him always, and then, I fear, her heart would really break.

“She reminds me of my own young vehemence and trust.  But the taking away will be the least sorrow of all.  Why!  How sorrowfully I am writing to-day:  no, how truly I am writing of life to-day:  of the life you and she are entering—­are already entered upon.  But God is good, God is good, hold to that, whatever happens.  Some day, when you are quite an old woman and I am really an old woman, I will tell you about my young days.

“Your letter was full of questions; do not expect me to answer them all at once.  First, about reading the Bible.  You poor dear child!  Do you think God keeps a book up in Heaven to put down every time you fail to read the Bible through in a year?  Because you have read it three times in course, so many chapters a weekday, and so many a Sunday, do you think you must keep on so or God will keep it laid up against you?