That was an eventful week to Carol. Three or four days after the return of Mrs. Burton and Eloise it was his turn to open the post-bag. The daily task of receiving the post-bag, unlocking it, sorting, and then distributing the contents, was always such a pleasure to the elder children that they had agreed to take it by turns.

There seemed an unusually full bag that morning when he emptied the contents on the hall table. He collected into a little pile all the letters for the servants' hall, for the school-room, and for Mrs. Mandeville. Colonel Mandeville was away with his regiment. Quite at the last he discovered two envelopes bearing the small, neat handwriting which always called forth an exclamation of pleasure.

"Two letters this morning from Cousin Alicia, one for Auntie and one for me!"

But he faithfully finished his task, and delivered the letters to their respective owners before opening his own letter.

Mrs. Mandeville frequently breakfasted with the children when Colonel Mandeville was away and there were no visitors staying in the house. Carol found her in the schoolroom.

Breakfast had commenced. "You have had a big delivery this morning, Mr. Postman, have you not?" she said.

"Yes, Auntie, nearly everyone has had more than one letter, and here are four for you, three for Miss Markham, one for Percy, one for Edith, and one for me from Cousin Alicia. One of your letters, too, Auntie, is from Cousin Alicia, and it is quite a fat one. Mine is quite thin. May I open it, Auntie?"

"Certainly, dear, I am sure Miss Markham will allow you. We all know how little people are impatient to read their letters."

Mrs. Mandeville laid three of her letters beside her plate. The one bearing the Devonshire post-mark she held in her hand, and presently drew the contents from the envelope.

Her face grew very white, her hand trembled as she saw Miss Desmond's letter enclosed another. Her eyes, suffused with tears, fell on dear, familiar writing.

Was it a message from the grave--from that watery grave where the mortal remains of the brother still so dear to her had been cast?

Carol meanwhile was devouring his letter, oblivious of everything else. He read:

"My dear Carol,

"Something so wonderful and beautiful has happened. Yet I should not perhaps use the word 'wonderful,' since nothing can be lost when Mind governs and controls. The letter which your dear father wrote me just before his death has at last reached me.

"Evidently through a mistake at the sorting office it was slipped into the American mail-bag at Gibraltar instead of the English. My name and address are almost stamped out, it has been to so many places in the United States of America and was afterwards sent on to Canada, where it has also visited many post-offices, before some postmaster or post-mistress remembered that S. Devon is part of an English county.

"A letter so important for your future, dear, could not be lost. I am sending it for Mrs. Mandeville to read, as it is necessary for her and also your Uncle Raymond to know the contents. They will, I am sure, observe their brother's last wishes; and one is, that no hindrance or impediment shall be put in the way of your studying the Science which has healed you. I am to buy a new copy of Science and Health, and write in it: 'To Carol--from Father.' You see, dear, Love has found a way, and just the most beautiful way of restoring to you the book you seemed to have lost, for a time at least.

"Dearly as you have valued the book before, it will have an added value with the knowledge that it comes to you expressly by your dear father's desire. Mrs. Mandeville will, no doubt, let you read (or read to you) the letter before returning it to me. You will rejoice to learn how much you were in your father's thoughts at the last. I have ordered a copy of the book. You will receive it in a very short time. I know how glad you will be to be able to study the Lesson-Sermons again. How nice it will be for you and Eloise to do them sometimes together! Dear little girl! Give her many loving thoughts from me. We miss her very much. Bob's affections seem about equally divided between his young master and 'the little lady' as he calls her.

"Always in thought and deed, dear Carol,

Very quietly Carol went to the back of his aunt's chair, and slipping an arm around her neck whispered softly in her ear:

"It's all right, Auntie. I knew that Love would find a way, but I didn't think it would be quite so soon, and such a beautiful way. It is all in Father's letter."

Mrs. Mandeville had laid her letters down unread. She could not disappoint the children, who loved her to breakfast with them, by taking them to her own room, and she wanted to be alone when she read them. As soon as breakfast was over, she left the school-room. An hour later Carol received a message that she wanted him to go to her.

"You have been crying, Auntie," he said, as he entered the room.

"Yes, dear, this letter from your father, and my dear brother, has been a joy and a sorrow to me, bringing back so vividly the remembrance of him. You will like to read it."

She gave the letter to Carol, and he at once sat down beside her, and read it.

"My dear Alicia,

"The fiat has gone forth! They give me neither weeks nor days: a few hours only. The sea has been very rough the past three days. A partly healed wound has reopened: the hemorrhage is internal. They cannot stop it. I think of you and my boy, and that Science which stanched his running wounds, and I wish I knew something of it. I put it off, like one of old, to a more convenient season. The little book you gave me I left with some poor fellows in the hospital, intending to get another copy when I reached England.

"Much of what you told me comes back, but it is not enough. I cannot realize it sufficiently. I have absolute faith that if I could reach England, or even cable to you, the verdict would be reversed. Ah, well! a greater man than I is supposed to have said:

'A day less or more, at sea or ashore,

We die, does it matter when?'

Somehow, it does seem to matter now. Life--even this life--has possibilities which I have failed to grasp. With you to help me, it seems I should have gained a clearer understanding of eternal verities. A haze--a mist is creeping over my senses. What I have to write I must write quickly.

"I think you know by a deed of settlement, executed before I left for South Africa, in the event of my death, my brother Raymond, and my dear sister Emmeline, become Carol's guardians. There is no time now to alter that arrangement in any way, even if I wished. It will be good for the boy to be with his cousins. He has seen too little of other children, and Emmeline, I know, will be a mother to him. Both she and Raymond will respect my last wishes, I am sure. Therefore, I want them to know it is my desire for Carol to spend three months of every year with you at his own home, that you may instruct him in that knowledge of God which has healed him. It is recorded that once ten were cleansed, and nine went thankless away. He must not belong to the nine.

"I have explained to Colonel Mandeville my earnest desire that you may be able to live at the Court, keeping on all the old servants until Carol is of age. The last time I saw my brother Raymond, the subject of Christian Science was mentioned, and from the remarks he made, his bitterly antagonistic views of it, I greatly fear that under his guardianship Carol may not be allowed to continue the study. Will you purchase for me a copy of the text-book, Science and Health, and write in it:

No one will take from the boy his dying father's last gift, and my wishes regarding it will I know, be paramount with him. He will like to know that my one regret now is that I did not myself study it when I had the opportunity.

"I have faced death before. I am facing it again, as a soldier, and, I trust, as a Christian. Somewhere it is written 'Greater love hath no man'-- You know the rest. Perhaps it will count, though it may not have been love so much as duty prompted the action which is costing me my life.

"I would write to Carol, and to Emmeline. I cannot. The pen slips from my hand."

The concluding sentence and the signature were almost illegible. Mrs. Mandeville took Carol in her arms, and they wept together.

"It is so cruel to think he might have been spared to us," she sobbed.

"Yes, Auntie; he would have been," Carol replied with simple faith.