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Daddy Long Legs

Page 59

I seem to be floundering in a sea of metaphor--but I hope you grasp my

meaning? Anyway, I have a very strong feeling that the only honest

thing for me to do is to teach this summer and begin to support myself.

MAGNOLIA,

Four days later I'd got just that much written, when--what do you think happened? The

maid arrived with Master Jervie's card. He is going abroad too this

summer; not with Julia and her family, but entirely by himself I told

him that you had invited me to go with a lady who is chaperoning a

party of girls. He knows about you, Daddy. That is, he knows that my

father and mother are dead, and that a kind gentleman is sending me to

college; I simply didn't have the courage to tell him about the John

Grier Home and all the rest. He thinks that you are my guardian and a

perfectly legitimate old family friend. I have never told him that I

didn't know you--that would seem too queer!

Anyway, he insisted on my going to Europe. He said that it was a

necessary part of my education and that I mustn't think of refusing.

Also, that he would be in Paris at the same time, and that we would run

away from the chaperon occasionally and have dinner together at nice,

funny, foreign restaurants.

Well, Daddy, it did appeal to me! I almost weakened; if he hadn't been

so dictatorial, maybe I should have entirely weakened. I can be

enticed step by step, but I WON'T be forced. He said I was a silly,

foolish, irrational, quixotic, idiotic, stubborn child (those are a few

of his abusive adjectives; the rest escape me), and that I didn't know

what was good for me; I ought to let older people judge. We almost

quarrelled--I am not sure but that we entirely did!

In any case, I packed my trunk fast and came up here. I thought I'd

better see my bridges in flames behind me before I finished writing to

you. They are entirely reduced to ashes now. Here I am at Cliff Top

(the name of Mrs. Paterson's cottage) with my trunk unpacked and

Florence (the little one) already struggling with first declension

nouns. And it bids fair to be a struggle! She is a most uncommonly

spoiled child; I shall have to teach her first how to study--she has

never in her life concentrated on anything more difficult than

ice-cream soda water.

We use a quiet corner of the cliffs for a schoolroom--Mrs. Paterson

wishes me to keep them out of doors--and I will say that I find it

difficult to concentrate with the blue sea before me and ships

a-sailing by! And when I think I might be on one, sailing off to

foreign lands--but I WON'T let myself think of anything but Latin

Grammar.

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