The letter—­although the unformed chirography betrayed the writer’s inexperience in pen-practice—­was correctly spelled and easy in style, crowded with loving messages to “dear papa and mamma;” relating anecdotes of school and home life, and while expressive of her longings for her parents’ return, professing willingness to stay where she was “until mamma should be well enough to come back.”

“I pray every night that God will cure her, and make us all happy again,” she wrote.  “I dreamed one night last week that I saw her dressed for a party, all rosy and funny and laughing, as she used to be, and that she kissed me, and put her arm around me, and called me ‘baby Florence’ and ‘little one,’ in her sweet voice.  Wasn’t it strange?  I awoke myself crying, I was so happy!  I do try to be brave, and not fret about what cannot be helped, papa, because I promised you I would; but sometimes it is right hard work.  It is always easier for a whole day after I get one of your nice, long letters.  It is not quite as good as having real talk with you, but it is the best treat I can have when you are away.”

Mrs. Sutton wiped her eyes.

“The dear child!” she said, in the subdued tone habitual to the frequenters of the sick-room.  “No wonder you want to see her!  Why didn’t you give her a holiday, and bring her to Virginia with you?”

“I dreaded the effect of a child’s high animal spirits and thoughtless bustle upon her mother’s health”—­the shadow thickening into trouble.  “The next best thing to having her with me is to know that she is kindly and lovingly looked after by my married sister, of whom she is very fond.  Florence is merrier, if not always happier, with her young cousins than if she were condemned to the repression and joyless routine of a house where the care of the sick is the most engrossing business to all.”

The more Mrs. Sutton meditated upon this conversation, the more enigmatical it appeared that the mother never spoke of missing her only living child—­never pined for the sound of her vivacious talk and the sight of her winning ways.  Curiosity—­her strong love for all children, and a lively interest in Florence and Florence’s father, the two who assuredly did feel the separation—­got the ascendency over discretion that night, when Rosa, too nervous to sleep, begged her to talk, “to scare away the horrors that were sitting, a blue-black brood, upon her pillow.”

“Your little daughter would be an endless source of entertainment to you if she were here,” said downright Aunt Rachel, with no show of circumlocution.  “I am surprised you do not send for her.”