I wonder if you will do as much for me when my Prince comes.  Mine is to be as handsome as Hollis, as good as Morris, as learned as the master, and as devoted as your splendid Will.  And if I cannot find all these in one I will—­make patch work for other brides and live alone with Miss Prudence.  And I’ll begin now to make the patch work.  Oh, dear, I wish you and Miss Prudence were here.  Hark! there’s somebody pounding on the outside kitchen door!  Shall I go down or let them pound?  I don’t believe it is Robin Hood or any of his merry men, do you?  I’ll screw my courage up and go.

“Vol.  III.  Next Day.  I won’t keep you in suspense, you dear, sympathetic Linnet.  I went down with some inward quaking but much outward boldness as the pounding increased, and did not even ask ‘Who’s there?’ before I opened the door.  But I was relieved to find Morris, covered with snow, looking like a storm king.  He said he had heard through Frank Grey that Josie couldn’t come and he would not let me stay alone in a storm.  I was so glad, if I had been you I should have danced around him, but as it was I and not you I only said how glad I was, and made him a cup of steaming coffee and gave him a piece of mince pie for being so good.  To-day it snows harder than ever, so that we do not expect father and mother; and Mr. Holmes has not come out in the storm, because Morris saw him and told him that he was on the way home.  Not a sleigh has passed, we have not seen a single human being to-day.  I could not have got out to the stable, and I don’t know what the cows and hens would have done without Morris.  He has thrown down more hay for the cows, and put corn where the hens may find it for to-morrow, in case he cannot get out to them.  The storm has not lessened in any degree; I never knew anything like it, but I am not the ‘oldest inhabitant.’  Wouldn’t I have been dreary here alone?

“This does seem to be a kind of adventure, but nothing happens.  Father is not strong enough to face any kind of a storm, and I am sure they will not attempt to start.  Morris says we are playing at housekeeping and he helps me do everything, and when I sit down to sew on your patch work he reads to me.  I let him read this letter to you, forgetting what I had said about my Prince, but he only laughed and said he was glad that he was good enough for me, even if he were not handsome enough, or learned enough, or devoted enough, and said he would become devoted forthwith, but he could not ever expect to attain to the rest.  He teases me and says that I meant that the others were not good enough.  He has had a letter from Will promising to take him before the mast next voyage and he is hilarious over it.  His mother tries to be satisfied, but she is afraid of the water.  When so many that we know have lost father or brother or husband on the sea it does seem strange that we can so fearlessly send another out.  Mrs. Rheid told me about a sea captain that she met when she was on a voyage