The handwriting was that of her cousin Lacey.
She got into bed with a mind suddenly swept into a new atmosphere, and opened the flimsy cover.

Shutting her eyes, she lay still for a moment--still and vague; she was only conscious of one thing, that a curtain had dropped on the terrible pictures she had seen, and that her mind was in a comforting quiet.

Presently she roused herself, and turned the letter over in her hand.

It was not long--was that because its news was bad news?
The first chronicles of disaster were usually brief! She smoothed the paper out-it had been crumpled and was a little soiled-and read it swiftly.

It ran: DEAR LADY COUSIN--As the poet says, "Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward," and in Egypt the sparks set the stacks on fire oftener than anywhere else, I guess.