Dear Enemy

You are right, I am afraid, about its being a woman's trick to make a

great show of forgiving a man, and then never letting him hear the end

of it. Well, Gordon, I positively don't know what the word "forgiving"

means. It can't include "forgetting," for that is a physiological

process, and does not result from an act of the will. We all have a

collection of memories that we would happily lose, but somehow those are

just the ones that insist upon sticking. If "forgiving" means promising

never to speak of a thing again, I can doubtless manage that. But it

isn't always the wisest way to shut an unpleasant memory inside you. It

grows and grows, and runs all through you like a poison.

Oh dear! I really didn't mean to be saying all this. I try to be the

cheerful, carefree (and somewhat light-headed) Sallie you like best; but

I've come in touch with a great deal of REALNESS during this last year,

and I'm afraid I've grown into a very different person from the girl you

fell in love with. I'm no longer a gay young thing playing with life.

I know it pretty thoroughly now, and that means that I can't be always

laughing.

I know this is another beastly uncheerful letter,--as bad as the last,

and maybe worse,--but if you knew what we've just been through! A

boy--sixteen--of unspeakable heredity has nearly poisoned himself with

a disgusting mixture of alcohol and witch hazel. We have been working

three days over him, and are just sure now that he is going to

recuperate sufficiently to do it again! "It's a gude warld, but they're

ill that's in 't."

Please excuse that Scotch--it slipped out. Please excuse everything.

SALLIE.

January 11.

Dear Judy:

I hope my two cablegrams didn't give you too terrible a shock. I would

have waited to let the first news come by letter, with a chance for

details, but I was so afraid you might hear it in some indirect way.

The whole thing is dreadful enough, but no lives were lost, and only one

serious accident. We can't help shuddering at the thought of how much

worse it might have been, with over a hundred sleeping children in this

firetrap of a building. That new fire escape was absolutely useless. The

wind was blowing toward it, and the flames simply enveloped it. We saved

them all by the center stairs--but I'll begin at the beginning, and tell

the whole story.

It had rained all day Friday, thanks to a merciful Providence, and the

roofs were thoroughly soaked. Toward night it began to freeze, and the

rain turned to sleet. By ten o'clock, when I went to bed the wind was

blowing a terrible gale from the northwest, and everything loose about

the building was banging and rattling. About two o'clock I suddenly

started wide awake, with a bright light in my eyes. I jumped out of bed

and ran to the window. The carriage house was a mass of flames, and

a shower of sparks was sweeping over our eastern wing. I ran to the

bathroom and leaned out of the window. I could see that the roof over

the nursery was already blazing in half a dozen places.