For an instant Anna trembled as if she saw opening before her the grave which for fourteen years had held her buried heart.  Charlie was breathing again the air of the same hemisphere with herself.  She might, perhaps, see him once more, and Hattie, was she with him, or was there another grave made with the Moslem dead by little Anna’s aide?  She would not ask, for she felt the cold, critical eyes bent upon her from across the hearth, and a few commonplace inquiries was all she ventured upon.  Had Mr. Millbrook greatly changed since he went away?  Did he look very sick?  And how had her brother liked him?

“I scarcely spoke to him,” was John’s reply.  “I confess to a most lamentable ignorance touching the Rev. Mr. Millbrook and his family.  He wore crape on his hat, I remember, but there was a lady with him to whom he was quite attentive, and who, I think, was called by his name.”

“Tall, with black eyes, like Lottie’s?” Anna meekly asked, and John replied:  “Something after the Lottie order, though more like yourself.”

“It’s strange I never saw a notice of his expected return,” was Anna’s next remark.  “Perhaps it was in the last Missionary Herald.  You have not found it yet, have you, mother?”

The ringing of the supper bell prevented Mrs. Richards from answering.  How gracefully he did the honors, and how proud all were of him, as he repeated little incidents of Parisian life, speaking of the emperor and Eugenie as if they had been everyday sights to him.  In figure and form the fair empress reminded him of Anna, he said, except that Anna was the prettier of the two—­a compliment which Anna acknowledged with a blush and a trembling of her long eyelashes.  It was a very pleasant family reunion, for John did his best to be agreeable.

“Oh, John, please be careful.  There’s an advertisement I want to save,” Anna exclaimed, as she saw her brother tearing a strip from the Herald with which to light his cigar, but as she spoke, the flame curled around the narrow strip, and Dr. Richards had lighted his cigar with the name and address appended to the advertisement which had so interested Anna.

How disturbed she was when she found that nought was left save the simple wants of the young girl.

“Let’s see,” and taking the mutilated sheet, Dr. Richards read the “Wanted, by a young unfortunate married woman.”

“That unfortunate may mean a great deal more than you imagine,” he said.

“Yes, but she distinctly says married.  Don’t you see, and I had really some idea of writing to her.”

“I’m sorry I was so careless, but there are a thousand unfortunate women who would gladly be your maid, little sister.  I’ll send you out a score, if you say so,” and John laughed.

“Has anything of importance occurred in this slow old town?” he inquired, after Anna had become reconciled to her loss.  “Are the people as odd as usual?”