You can tell me your news when I come back." It is not fair to peep into love letters, so I will only say of Ned's that it was very long, very entertaining,--Katy thought,--and contained the pleasant information that the "Natchitoches" was to sail four days after it was posted, and would reach New York a week sooner than any one had dared to hope.

The letter contained several other things as well, which showed Katy how continually she had been in his thoughts,--a painting on rice paper, a dried flower or two, a couple of little pen-and-ink sketches of the harbor of Santa Lucia and the shipping, and a small cravat of an odd convent lace folded very flat and smooth.

Altogether it was a delightful letter, and Katy read it, as it were, in leaps, her eyes catching at the salient points, and leaving the details to be dwelt upon when she should be alone.
This done, she thrust the letter into her pocket, and proceeded to examine the others.

The first was in Cousin Helen's clear, beautiful handwriting:-- DEAR KATY,--If any one had told us ten years ago that in this particular year of grace you would be getting ready to be married, and I preparing to come to your wedding, I think we should have listened with some incredulity, as to an agreeable fairy tale which could not possibly come true.

We didn't look much like it, did we,--you in your big chair and I on my sofa?
Yet here we are! When your letter first reached me it seemed a sort of impossible thing that I should accept your invitation; but the more I thought about it the more I felt as if I must, and now things seem to be working round to that end quite marvellously.