there will come a time, ere long, when I shall have no sister."

There were tears in Maggie's eyes, tears for the fair young girl whom
she had never seen, and she felt a yearning desire to look on the
beautiful face of her whom Henry called his sister. "I wish she would
come here; I want to see her," she said at last; and Henry replied:
"She does not go often from home. But I have her daguerreotype in
Worcester. I'll write to Douglas to bring it," and opening the letter,
which was not yet sealed, he added a few lines. "Come, Maggie," he
said, when this was finished, "you need exercise. Suppose you ride
over to the office with these letters?"

Maggie would rather have remained with him; but she expressed her
willingness to go, and in a few moments was seated on Gritty's back
with the two letters clasped firmly in her hand. At one of these, the
one bearing the name of Rose Warner, she looked often and wistfully;
it was a most beautiful name, she thought, and she who bore it was
beautiful too. And then there arose within her a wish--shadowy and
undefined to herself, it is true; but still a wish--that she, Maggie
Miller, might one day call that gentle Rose her sister. "I shall see
her sometimes, anyway," she thought, "and this George Douglas, too. I
wish they'd visit us together;" and having by this time reached the
post-office she deposited the letters and galloped rapidly toward
home.




CHAPTER VII.