’He came many times, for I was always there waiting for him, I am afraid; but when he said he loved me, and wanted me for his wife I could not believe it, he was so grand, so like nobility, and I so poor and plain.  Then mother died suddenly—­oh, so suddenly—­well to-day—­dead to-morrow—­with cholera, and I was left alone.

’"Gretchen we must he married now,” he said to me, the night after the funeral; and I answered him, “yes, we must be married;” and we were, the next day, in the little English Church, by Mr. Eaton, the pastor.  You will find the certificate with the other papers.  Do you ever remember a beautiful moonlight night, when the air was soft, and warm, and sweet with many summer flowers, and there was music in the distance, and heaven seemed so near that you could almost touch the blue lining which separates it from us?  Well, just like that was my life with Arthur for a few months.  Oh, how I loved him, and how he loved me!  It frightened me sometimes, he was so fierce and—­I don’t know what the word is—­so something in his love.  He never left me a moment.  He couldn’t, he said, for I was his balance-wheel, and without me he was lost.  I think now he was crazy then.  I know he was afterward when he did such queer things and forgot so often—­sometimes the house we lived in, sometimes his own name, and at last, me, his Gretchen!  That was so sad, when he went away, and stayed away for weeks, and said he had forgotten.  But he was sorry, too, and made it up, and for ten day heaven came down again so I could touch it; then he went away and I have never seen him since.

’You must excuse me, his friends—­if I stop a little while to cry; it makes me no lonesome to think of the long years—­four and more—­which have been buried with the yesterdays, under the flowers, and under the snow, since Arthur went away and left me all alone.  If I had told him, he might have come back, he was so fond of children; but I was not sure, and would not tell a lie, and let him go without a hint.  I wrote him once I had something to tell him when he came which would make him glad, as it did me, and he never replied to it, though he wrote two or three times more, and sent me money, but did not tell me where he was, only he was being cured, he said—­that was all.  In January my baby was born, and I had her christened Jerrine, by Mr. Eaton.  You will find it among the papers.  Then, how I longed for him, and waited, and watched; but he never came, and I knew he had forgotten; but I did not doubt his love, or that he would one day come back; and I tried to improve myself and learn what was in books, so I could mate with him better when he came home, which he never did; and the years went on, and my little Jerrine grew more lovely every day.  She is standing by me now, and says, “Are you writing to him?”

    ’Darling Jerrie, you will be kind to her, won’t you, for his sake,
    and for me, too, who will be dead when you yet this?’