Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878., page 119 by Various Authors
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n friend Barbara's writing was placed in my hand, I can but say that more joy than I had ever before experienced was mine, and I thought of Miriam's song so full of triumph and gladness. And then the wonderful words of the psalm came to me. "'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me,'" I said aloud, and thought of poor friend Jordan as she had understood those words so short a time ago.
Suppose Barbara had written in answer to my letter to her--had owned that her thought of the man was a delusion, and that she cared for me, and me only, above all others in the world! I carried the letter by me for many an hour, for it was business-time when I had it, and I let nothing interfere with needful duties of the day. It lay within my pocket pulseless, as a letter always is: its envelope had my name upon it carefully and neatly inscribed. Then when I had an hour to myself I walked, not more briskly than usual, to a sunny hollow surrounded by new boards smelling most pleasantly of the rich forests they had helped to form, and there, surrounded by deal that had held many a singing bird's voice in its time, I broke the seal of Barbara's second letter to me. I think I was vastly stricken as I read it--more stricken perhaps than life can ever experience twice. Did she write as I had most hoped and desired? It was a long letter, and I read it through twice to fully comprehend it. She was a thief! she herself had stolen the money! She knew that her father must have written me that the money was gone, and she did not wish to see the blame rest on an innocent person. Her father had been harsher than usual with her, and, when she would have asserted herself in many ways, had always referred her to me, telling her that I was the rightful one to say what might and what might not be: her father had refused to hear her make mention of the man she had mentioned to me, and had not recognized her being with him at all. (I could see