Excerpt from A Bride Elect I am, as I have said, a single woman; and having in these later days no ties or duties to anchor me domestically, I sought them for myself by joining a lay sisterhood working in the parish of St. Cyprian's in the East. I pledged myself for five years, - the five years Barbara wrote about, - and that is why she took it into her head to dub me Dorcas. For four out of the five years my work prospered, and I found it almost as engrossing as I hoped but in the fifth my health broke down, and after weeks of hospital (as a patient this time and not a helper) I resolved to take back my liberty now that my term of service was fulfilled. Barbara's invitation happened opportunely, and it was endorsed the day following by a letter from Mrs. Alleyne, begging me to remain with them for a time after the wedding, and take a real rest under their roof. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.