It was long ere Alice forgot the expression of her mother’s face or the sound of her voice, so full of love and tenderness, as she bade her good-night on that last evening they ever spent together alone.  The indisposition of which Mrs. Johnson had been complaining for several days, proved to be no light matter, and when next morning Dr. Rogers was summoned to her bedside, he decided it to be a fever which was then prevailing to some extent in the neighboring towns.

That afternoon it was told at Terrace Hill that Mrs. Johnson was very sick, and half an hour later the Richards carriage, containing the doctor and his Sister Anna, wound down the hill, and passing through the park, turned in the direction of the cottage, where they found Mrs. Johnson even worse than they had anticipated.  The sight of distress aroused Anna at once, and forgetting her own feebleness she kindly offered to stay until night if she could be of any service.  Mrs. Johnson was fond of Anna, and she expressed her pleasure so eagerly that Anna decided to remain, and went with Alice to remove her wrappings.

“Oh, I forgot!” she exclaimed, as a sudden thought seemed to strike her.  “I don’t know as I can stay after all, though I might write it here, I suppose as well as at home; and as John is going to New York to-night he will take it along.”

“What is it?” Alice asked; and Anna replied: 

“You’ll think me very foolish, no doubt, but I want to know if you too think so.  I’m so dependent on other’s opinions,” and, in a low tone, Anna told of the advertisement seen early last winter, how queerly it was expressed, and how careless John had been in tearing off the name and address, with which to light his cigar.  “It seems to me,” she continued, “that ‘unfortunate married woman’ is the very one I want.”

“Yes; but how will you find her?  I understand that the address was burned,” Alice rejoined quickly, feeling herself that Anna was hardly sane in her calculations.

“Oh, I’ve used that in the wording,” Anna answered.  “I do not know as it will ever reach her, it’s been so long, but if it does, she’ll be sure to know I mean her, or somebody like her.”

“I dislike writing very much,” she said, as she saw the array of materials, “and I write so illegibly too.  Please do it for me, that’s a dear, good girl,” and she gave the pen to Alice, who wrote the first word, “Wanted,” and then waited for Anna to dictate.

“Wanted—­By an invalid lady, whose home is in the country, a young woman, who will be both useful and agreeable, either as a companion or waiting maid.  No objection will be raised if the woman is married, and unfortunate, or has a child a few months old.  Address,

  “A.E.R., Snowdon, Hampden Co., Mass.”

Alice thought it the queerest advertisement she had ever seen, but Anna was privileged to do queer things, and folding the paper, she went out into the hall, where the doctor sat waiting for her.