hand-clasp. "Don't you know that one corner of our country is called New
England, in loving remembrance of the old; that your blood flows in our
veins regardless of dividing seas, and gives us the same heritage of
that proud past which you hold dear? Don't you know that thousands of us
go back every year, like children of the old homestead, drawn by all
those countless threads of song and story, of common interests and aims
and relationships that have kept the two nations woven together in the
woof of one great family?

"Let me tell you a bit of personal sentiment that links me to the old
town of Chester on the River Dee. There is a house there that, until
recently, was in the possession of my husband's family for nobody knows
how many generations. Thousands of travellers go every year to see the
inscription over its door. Once, over two hundred years ago, an awful
plague swept the town, and every family in it lost one or more of its
household. Only this one house was spared, and in grateful memory of
its escape there was carved over the door the inscription:

"'GOD'S PROVIDENCE IS MINE INHERITANCE.'

"That became the family motto, and it is engraved here in my
wedding-ring. The beautiful thought has helped me over many times of
perplexity and sorrow, and has become the inspiration of my life.
Because we can trace it back to that place, I have grown to love every
stone in the quaint old streets of Chester."

She sat twisting the plain gold circlet on her finger for a moment, and
then added thoughtfully: "In the light of her history America might well
set that inscription over her own door: 'God's providence is mine
inheritance.' It would be none the less appropriate because it reaches