"Your loving mother,

ELIZABETH BRADY."

There was no date nor address to the letter, but an address had been

pencilled on the outside in her mother's cramped school-girl hand. It was

dim but still readable, "Mrs. Elizabeth Brady, 18---- Flora Street,

Philadelphia."

Elizabeth studied the last word, then drew out the envelope again, and

looked at that. Yes, the two names were the same. How wonderful! Perhaps

she would sometime, sometime, see him again, though of course he belonged

to the lady. But perhaps, if she went to school and learned very fast, she

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might sometime meet him at church--he went to church, she was sure--and

then he might smile, and not be ashamed of his friend who had saved his

life. Saved his life! Nonsense! She had not done much. He would not feel

any such ridiculous indebtedness to her when he got back to home and

friends and safety. He had saved her much more than she had saved him.

She put the papers all back in safety, and after having prepared her few

belongings for taking up the journey, she knelt down. She would say the

prayer before she went on. It might be that would keep the terrible

pursuers away.

She said it once, and then with eyes still closed she waited a moment.

Might she say it for him, who was gone away from her? Perhaps it would

help him, and keep him from falling from that terrible machine he was

riding on. Hitherto in her mind prayers had been only for the dead, but

now they seemed also to belong to all who were in danger or trouble. She

said the prayer over once more, slowly, then paused a moment, and added:

"Our Father, hide him from trouble. Hide George Trescott Benedict. And

hide me, please, too."

Then she mounted her horse, and went on her way.

It was a long and weary way. It reached over mountains and through

valleys, across winding, turbulent streams and broad rivers that had few

bridges. The rivers twice led her further south than she meant to go, in

her ignorance. She had always felt that Philadelphia was straight ahead

east, as straight as one could go to the heart of the sun.

Night after night she lay down in strange homes, some poorer and more

forlorn than others; and day after day she took up her lonely travel

again.

Gradually, as the days lengthened, and mountains piled themselves behind

her, and rivers stretched like barriers between, she grew less and less to

dread her pursuers, and more and more to look forward to the future. It

seemed so long a way! Would it never end?

Once she asked a man whether he knew where Philadelphia was. She had been

travelling then for weeks, and thought she must be almost there. But he

said "Philadelphia? O, Philadelphia is in the East. That's a long way off.

I saw a man once who came from there."




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