Letters from Hugh and Irving Stanley

Claib had brought two letters from the office, one for Mrs. Worthington
from Hugh, and one for Alice from Irving Stanley. This last had been
long delayed, and as she broke the seal a little nervously, reading that
his trip to Europe had been deferred on account of the illness of his
sister's governess, but that he was going on board the ship that day,
July tenth, and that his sister was there with him and the governess, "A
modest, sweet-faced body," he wrote, "who looks very girl-like from the
fact that her soft, brown hair is worn short in her neck."

Alice had a tolerably clear insight into Irving Stanley's character, and
immediately her mind conjured up visions of what might be the result of
a sea voyage and months of intimate companionship with that sweet-faced
governess, "who wore her soft, brown hair short in her neck."

"I hope it may be so," she thought; and folding up her letter, she was
about going out to the rustic seat beneath a tall maple where Mug sat,
whispering over the primer she was trying so hard to read, when a cry
from Mrs. Worthington arrested her attention and brought her at once to
the side of the half-fainting woman.

"What is it?" Alice asked, in much alarm, and Mrs. Worthington replied:
"Oh, Hugh, Hugh, my boy! he's enlisted, joined the army! I shall never
see him again!"

Could Hugh have seen Alice then he would not for a moment have doubted
the nature of her feelings toward himself. She did not cry out, nor
faint, but her face turned white as the dress she wore, while her hands
pressed so tightly together, that her long, taper nails left the impress
in her flesh.