Now it would be very natural to suppose that a young lady with a grain of sense left in her brains, would, in cooler moments, have been rather glad than otherwise, to have such a restless, unhappy, unchristianlike letter hopelessly lost.  But Ester felt, as has been seen, thoroughly angry that so much lofty sentiment, which she mistook for religion, was entirely lost Yet let it not be supposed that one word of this rebellious outbreak was written simply for effect.  Ester, when she wrote that she “hated her life,” was thoroughly and miserably in earnest.  When, in the solitude of her own room, she paced her floor that evening, and murmured, despairingly:  “Oh, if something would only happen to rest me for just a little while!” she was more thoroughly in earnest than any human being who feels that Christ has died to save her, and that she has an eternal resting-place prepared for her, and waiting to receive her, has any right to feel on such a subject.  Yet, though the letter had never reached its destination, the pitying Savior, looking down upon his poor, foolish lamb in tender love, made haste to prepare an answer to her wild, rebellious cry for help, even though she cried blindly, without a thought of the Helper who is sufficient for all human needs.

“Long looked for, come at last!” and Sadie’s clear voice rang through the dining-room, and a moment after that young lady herself reached the pump-room, holding up for Ester’s view a dainty envelope, directed in a yet more dainty hand to Miss Ester Ried.  “Here’s that wonderful letter from Cousin Abbie which you have sent me to the post-office after three times a day for as many weeks.  It reached here by the way of Cape Horn, I should say, by its appearance.  It has been remailed twice.”

Ester set her pail down hastily, seized the letter, and retired to the privacy of the pantry to devour it; and for once was oblivious to the fact that Sadie lunched on bits of cake broken from the smooth, square loaf while she waited to hear the news.

“Anything special?” Mrs. Ried asked, pausing in the doorway, which question Ester answered by turning a flushed and eager face toward them, as she passed the letter to Sadie, with permission to read it aloud.  Surprised into silence by the unusual confidence, Sadie read the dainty epistle without comment: 

“MY DEAR ESTER: 

“I’m in a grand flurry, and shall therefore not stop for long stories to-day, but come at the pith of the matter immediately.  We want you.  That is nothing new, you are aware, as we have been wanting you for many a day.  But there is new decision in my plans, and new inducements, this time.  We not only want, but must have you.  Please don’t say ‘No’ to me this once.  We are going to have a wedding in our house, and we need your presence, and wisdom, and taste.  Father says you can’t be your mother’s daughter if you haven’t exquisite taste.  I am very busy helping to get the bride in order, which is a work of time and patience; and I do so much need your aid; besides, the bride is your Uncle Ralph’s only daughter, so of course you ought to be interested in her.