Cecily sighed a little and shifted in her chair. She was grateful—truly, she was—to be at the Trudeau Institute. Many people who suffered from tuberculosis never even had the chance to recover. Here, she had a very good chance at surviving her disease. And yet, for all that, she was bored. Everything was regimented; everything was done the same way every day. Wake up at 7:00. Drink milk and take tests. Breakfast. Doctor's inspection. Rest outside. Luncheon. Rest or work at pointless handcrafts. Snack. Rest. Supper. Evening entertainment. Nighttime snack. Bed. The same thing, day after day. The monotony of it was almost more unbearable than the actual illness.

Cecily sighed again and chastised herself. The doctors and nurses here had been curing people for over a generation; they knew what was best. It wasn't right to complain, even to herself.

She looked up with a bright smile as one of the nurses wheeled another patient out onto the porch. Muffled in sweaters and afghans, the patients were sent outside to rest and sleep on the porches in all weathers and all seasons.

"Good morning, Meg," Cecily said softly.

A small, triangular face and wickedly bright eyes peeped back out at her from the jumble of blankets. "Morning, Sis," said the other girl.

"There now," said the nurse brightly. "You girls can chat together cozily now, won't that be nice? Oh, Miss Cecily, there's a letter for you come in the post this morning." She pulled an envelope out of her pocket and handed it to Cecily, who received it rather indifferently.

"Probably from Father or Grandmother Lavender. They write quite regularly."

Meg waited until the nurse had left, and then said, "Are you sure it isn't from that handsome stranger who came here asking about you?" She broke into a fit of giggles, interspersed with racking coughs.

Cecily rolled her eyes. "Oh, Meg. You know that Nurse Anna likes to romance." A week or so ago one of the nurses had come to the girls with a wild tale of a handsome, mysterious stranger who had tried to force entrance into the Institute, demanding to see Cecily. That maiden had dismissed it all as sheer fluff, but Meg and some of the other girls still liked to tease her about it.

"How are you this morning, Meg?" asked Cecily, changing the subject.

Margaret Johnson was twenty years old, and had been in the Trudeau Institute since she was seventeen. They'd thought she was cured enough to leave a few times, but each time her symptoms reemerged within weeks of leaving, and she had to return. Everyone knew she wasn't leaving this time; the disease had progressed too far, but the Institute refused to cast her out, hoping against hope that they could still cure her.

And odd friendship had blossomed between the two girls. They were very different in personality—Cecily was quiet and shy, while Meg was vivacious and loud—but they took to each other right away. Meg's boisterous good cheer bolstered Cecily's weary spirits, and Cecily's calmness helped to steady the other girl. Even the nurses noticed the friendship and encouraged it.

Meg pulled one hand out of her blankets and waved it airily. "Marvelous, darling, simply too-too."

Cecily rippled out an amused laugh. No matter how much pain Meg was in, she never complained, and always made a joke out of everything.

"Go on, Sis, read your letter," added Meg. "I always like to hear what your family has to say." Her own family rarely contacted her, preferring to act as though she no longer existed.

Cecily complied. She looked at the envelope curiously as she opened it. "That's odd."

"What?"

"It's not from Father or Grandmother Lavender. Grandmother Lavender's handwriting is very graceful and old-fashioned, and Father's is clear and flowing. Look." She held the letter out to where Meg could see the upright, striking black characters.

Meg shrugged. "Well, you won't know who wrote it unless you read it. Go on."

Cecily coughed a little and began to read.

"My very dear Cecily…" she began, and then her voice trailed off as she stared in disbelief at the rest of the contents of the letter. Emotion she couldn't quite recognize flooded her heart as the words leapt off the page before her eyes. She clapped her hands to her suddenly burning cheeks, letting the letter drop to the floor of the porch. "Oh!" she gasped. "Oh, oh!"

"What?" asked Meg, a sharp note of alarm in her voice. "Cecily, what is it?"

Cecily couldn't answer. She seemed paralyzed with shock.

"Sissy, answer me, or I'll call the nurse! What's wrong?"

"He—he loves me," Cecily finally managed to whisper. "He loves me!" To her utter surprise, she burst into tears.

Shirley whistled a little as he left the campus. Fall had arrived in Potsdam, and everywhere red and orange leaves carpeted the sidewalks and lawns. The crisp, clean air invigorated him. Lately he had been feeling tired and discouraged. His classes were getting more and more difficult, his job as a carpenter was proving more challenging than he had expected, and—worst of all—he hadn't heard of any improvement in Cecily's condition. He called the Irvings every evening, hoping to hear of a change, but thus far the answer always was: "Nothing yet."

Today, however, he was feeling better. He was finally starting to get a handle on his courses—in fact, just that morning one of his professors had complimented him on his most recent project. He was starting to get to know many of the other students, too. A group of other juniors had invited him to have lunch with them that day, but he needed to get to his most recent job site, and had been forced to decline. As for Cecily, he still wished he could hear of an improvement, but sometimes, he reminded himself, no news was good news, and it was early yet for her to start recovering. He must not expect too much, too soon.

He entered his apartment building, bade his landlady a cheerful hello, and ran up the stairs to change into his work clothes.

"There you are, Shirley!" exclaimed Diana, as he entered their apartment. She was dressed in her simple navy blue dress and white cap—the nuns had wanted her to wear a wimple, but she had flatly refused, so they compromised with a cap—obviously getting ready to leave for work. "I left a sandwich for you in the icebox, and a glass of milk. Make sure you eat before leaving for work."

Shirley grinned at her. "Di, I'm not a child. I can feed myself, you know."

Di snorted in an extremely un-ladylike manner. "You wouldn't know it to look at you. You are wearing yourself to skin and bones, my dear boy. What will Susan say if you fade away to nothing while I'm here with you? She'd never forgive me."

Shirley shrugged out of his jacket and headed into his bedroom to change. "Alright, I'll eat. I've just been busy lately," he called over his shoulder as he went.

"I know," Di said sympathetically. "But working yourself into the ground will not help Cecily any."

"But it does stop me from thinking about her so much," he answered, coming back out in his denim pants and button-down shirt. Seeing her concerned look, he changed the subject.

"How are things at the Home?"

Di's face lit up. "There's a family that wants to adopt little Ethan," she said eagerly. "I'll miss him terribly, of course, but I'm so glad he's going to be in a family. He needs love so badly. Sister Mary Elizabeth said I have a real knack for this sort of work, and she wouldn't be surprised at all if I was fully able to run my own asylum in a year or so."

She chattered on, but Shirley was only listening with half an ear. Had it not been for his worry over Cecily, he could have enjoyed life in Potsdam very much. The people—"Yankees" though they might be—were extremely friendly, and the combination of school and work would not have been too much had he not been worrying all the time. In fact, were Cecily not in the picture, he could have seen him and Di settling down there as a sort of modern Matthew and Marilla, just as Di had suggested when Rilla and Ken got engaged, living together and taking care of each other into their old age. But, he sighed, with Cecily suffering from tuberculosis, he couldn't bring himself to thoroughly enjoy anything. Until he knew that she was out of danger, everything he did would have a taint to it. If he knew for certain that she loved him back, it would have eased things slightly, but with everything between them uncertain, he felt like he was on an emotional see-saw. He found himself missing flying more and more these days.

Trudeau Institute

Saranac Lake

September 25, 1921

Dearest Shirley,

You will likely never see this letter. I can't send it out, but I have to write back to tell you what is in my heart. It seems too wonderful to believe that you love me. I still think I might have dreamt it, but then I just look at your letter again and…there it is, written in your own precious hand. How can you love me? I am so young, and so frail, and so unworthy of you. You have seemed to me, ever since I met you, the epitome of everything good and manly and healthy. I'll never forget seeing you in the woods that first day. You were so kind, and such a gentleman. I'd never had a real friend my own age before, and you seemed to really like me. Even then it almost seemed too wonderful to be true. And now to find that you love me! I am so blessed.

Oh Shirley, how I wish I were healthy. It seems so cruel that you should love me when I am so ill. I feel as though I ought to tell you to forget about me and love another, but I can't. Perhaps I am selfish, but I am glad you love me! Glad! Oh Shirley, how could I not be? And how could you even think I might not love you in return? I cannot help but love you. Unlike you, I know the exact moment when I fell in love with you. It was when they told me I had tuberculosis and had to come here. All I could think at that moment was that I wanted you near me. I wanted you to hold me and promise me everything would be fine. At the moment when I realized I might not have a future at all, I knew that I wanted to spend my future with you. I still wish it, however unlikely it may seem.

Thank you, a thousand times over, for writing to me and confessing your love. Had I died without knowing…I think I would have felt dissatisfied even in heaven. I know that I wouldn't, of course, but I do feel that way. Something has been missing from my life, and now I am complete. I promise you, Shirley, I will do everything in my power to get better now. No matter how unpleasant the treatment is, I will not complain or even think of complaining. I'll just think of you, and your dear, steady, faithful brown eyes, and funny little half-smile that I love so well, and I'll have the strength to go on.

It is time for dinner now, dearest. I must go, but I could not be content until I had written out a response to you. I love you, more than any pen could ever express.

Yours, always,

Cecily.

Cecily laid her pen down and tucked her letter into the small diary that she kept next to her bed. She smiled brightly at the nurse. "I'm ready."

Author's Note: This didn't come out quite as I wanted it, but as I was receiving death threats through email (you know who you are), I figured for my own safety I needed to update. The end is slowly, steadily approaching! I have only seven more chapters planned after this, so stay tuned (and reviews are, as always, most appreciated).