where the crape-myrtle nodded cheerfully to her just as it did before they frightened her so. The dark house she was afraid of, so she had gone far out of doors. The little lips that had lately quivered piteously, sang a tune in unthinking gaiety, and life was again the same, for she could not then understand.
The other scene was a radiant, sparkling, wildly joyous picture. The world, enticing as a fairy garden, received her in her bright, petted youth—her richly endowed orphanhood had been a perpetual feast. In this period not one single voice of cold or ungracious tenor could she recall.
But now she looked full over that garden, once all abloom. Here a flower with blight in its heart, yonder one whose leaves were falling. There whole bushes were only stems enthorned, and stood brown and bitter, leaves and flowers withered or dead.
"So," thought she, "it is with my life." A rap on the door brought her into the present. It was the delivery of the latest mail: some papers, a magazine, and one letter. The letter was post-*marked Winchester, Ky. With a little sigh of triumphant expectation, she broke the seal. It, to her thinking, might contain good news from friends at home.
