“Daddy,” said, Barbara, softly, when they were alone, “do you know what day it is?”

“No,” he answered; “why?”

“It’s my birthday—­I’m twenty-two to-day.”

“Are you?  Your dear mother was twenty-two when she—­I wish you were like your mother, Barbara.”

“Mother left a letter with Aunt Miriam,” said Barbara, gently.  “She gave it to me to-day.”

The old man sprang to his feet.  “A letter!” he cried, reaching out a trembling hand.  “For me?”

[Sidenote:  Barbara Reads to her Father]

Barbara laughed—­a little sadly.  “No, Daddy—­for me.  But there is something for you in it.  Sit down, and I’ll read it to you.”

“Read it all,” he cried.  “Read every word.”

“Barbara, my darling, my little lame baby,” read the girl, her voice shaking, “if you live to read this letter, your mother will have been dead for many years, and possibly forgotten.”

“No,” breathed Ambrose North—­“never forgotten.”

“I have chosen your twenty-second birthday for this, because I am twenty-two now, and when you are the same age, it will be as if we were sisters, rather than mother and daughter.”

“Dear Constance,” whispered the old man.

“When I came from school, I met your father.  He was a brilliant man, handsome, courteous, distinguished, of fine character and unassailable position.”

Barbara glanced up quickly.  The dull red had crept into his wrinkled cheeks, but his lips were parted in a smile.

“There is not a word to be said of him that is not wholly good.  He has failed at no point, nor in the smallest degree.  I have disappointed him, I fear, even though I love him dearly and always have.  I have never loved him more than I do to-day, when I leave you both forever.

“Tell your dear father, if he still lives, that he has been very good to me, that I appreciate all his kindness, gentleness, patience, and the beautiful love he has given me.  Tell him I am sorry I have failed him——­”

“Oh, dear God!” he cried. “She fail?”

“That I have not been a better wife,” Barbara went on, brokenly.  “Tell him I have loved him, that I love him still, and have never loved him more than I do to-day.

“Forgive me, both of you, and love me if you can.  Your Mother.”

In the tense silence, Barbara folded up both sheets and put them back into the envelope.  Still, she did not dare to look at her father.  When, at last, she turned to him, sorely perplexed and afraid, he was still sitting at her bedside.  He had not moved a muscle, but he had changed.  If molten light had suddenly been poured over him from above, while the rest of the room lay in shadow, he could not have changed more.

[Sidenote:  As by Magic]

The sorrowful years had slipped from him, and, as though by magic, Youth had come back.  His shoulders were still stooped, his face and hands wrinkled, and his hair was still as white as the blown snow, but his soul was young, as never before.