CHAPTER XXI

_From Miss Helen Jelliffe to Miss Jane Van Zandt_


_Aunt Jennie_, _darling_:

Isn't the world just the most wonderful place? No one knows it at all
until after it has played battledore and shuttlecock with them, and they
have been tossed to and fro for a long time. Weren't those old Persians
wonderful people? Of course they had no means of knowing the real truth
but it surely was the next thing to it to worship the dear sun. It goes
away and leaves things dark and dismal, and there may be hail and sleet
and rain, and the outlook is all dark, but presently the clouds move and
the fog blows away and the path of light twinkles over the big ocean and
the very grasses of the hillsides perk up and the birds try to split
their little throats with song. They are all sun-worshippers.

Of course you want to know at once how it all came about. I am still
shaky and uncertain, as if I had just been awakened. Sometimes I hardly
believe that it is the real truth that I behold, but merely some vision
that must pass away like the gold and the crimson of the fading day.

John is getting well! I feel that I want to shout it farther than the
voice of man ever carried before. I wish that wonderful Marconi could set
all these little waves he makes in the air to vibrating at once and carry
over the whole world the tidings that my John is going to live! Of course
there were a few very dreadful days, and some nights that were agony, and
that nice little doctor lost his red cheeks and looked pale and wan, and