Chapter XII: Ethel Learns to Cook

Here is a page from her letter to her grandmother:

"Oh! my dear Grandmamma, you don't know how happy I am--not being
away from those I love, but things are so different. I get up early
and after breakfast I help Aunt Susan with the housework, for her
maid is too old to go up and down stairs. I have learned to
churn--to make butter and pot cheese as well. I dust, make my bed,
and sweep my room. (Don't let mother see this. She may consider
that I am doing a servant's work).

"I am invited everywhere and lovely people call, but that is
because I am the niece of a wealthy woman. And yet people's love
for Aunt Susan seems so genuine--not as though they were toadying
to her for her money. And Grandmamma, 'Mr. Tom,' as I call
him,--Tom Harper--is the finest man I ever met. He is a man--not a
man like Harvey Bigelow, mind you,--and people respect him and look
up to him. He comes here every other night. He has a buckboard and
on Sundays he takes me for long drives. Doesn't he love Aunt Susan
though? He told me that there never lived such a good and unselfish
woman, and then he told me of all that she had done.

"His brother and he were left orphans without a penny. His father
was a clergyman and his mother and Aunt Susan had been friends for
years; in fact, he says, 'My mother had been one of Aunt Susan's
pupils.' I must have shown surprise for he answered when I said
'What?'--'Yes, before her father died she taught in the High
School.' Did you know it, Grandmamma? Well, she did. She's awfully
intelligent and now I know the cause of it. Why, she's like a
walking dictionary.

"Mr. Tom said that his father and mother died inside of a month,
and he and his little brother Fred were left alone. Then brave Aunt
Susan, who had loved his parents, came forward and legally adopted
them. Think, Grandmamma,--but for her they might have had to go to
the Orphan Asylum and wear blue gingham uniforms.

"Then Aunt Susan sent them each to college. Poor Fred contracted
typhoid fever and died during his third year. Mr. Tom and Aunt
Susan say he was lovely--so gentle and sweet. It is sad to die so
young, isn't it? But Mr. Tom graduated from college and studied law
with Ex-Judge Green, and if you will believe it, all of the Judge's
practice came to him at his death--Judge Green's death I mean--and
he told me that he could never repay dear Aunt Susan for her
goodness to him and to his brother. It was more than that of a
mother, for they were not of her blood.

"I'll close now, for Mr. Tom has come to take me for a long drive.
I hope the girls get in to see you often. What do they think of
Mamma's giving me permission to join Cousin Kate's Camp Fire Girls?
Isn't it great?

"With love and lots of kisses to all,
Your affectionate grandchild,
Ethel."