Dearest: I am in a simple mood to-day, and give you the benefit of it:

I shall become complicated again presently, and you will hear from me

directly that happens.

The house only emptied itself this morning; I may say emptied, for the

remainder fits like a saint into her niche, and is far too comfortable

to count. This is C----, whom you only once met, when she sat so much in

the background that you will not remember her. She has one weakness, a

thirst between meals--the blameless thirst of a rabid teetotaler. She

hides cups of cold tea about the place, as a dog its bones: now and then

one gets spilled or sat on, and when she hears of the accident, she

looks thirsty, with a thirst which only that particular cup of tea

could have quenched. In no other way is she any trouble: indeed, she is

a great dear, and has the face of a Madonna, as beautiful as an

apocryphal gospel to look at and "make believe" in.

Arthur, too, like the rest of them, when he came over to give me his

brotherly blessing, wished to know what you were like. I didn't pretend

to remember your outward appearance too well,--told him you looked like

a common or garden Englishman, and roused his suspicions by so careless

a championship of my choice. He accused me of being in reality highly

sentimental about you, and with having at that moment your portrait

concealed and strung around my neck in a locket. Mother-Aunt stood up

for me against him, declaring I was "too sensible a girl for nonsense of

that sort." (It is a little weakness of hers, you know, to resent

extremes of endearment towards anyone but herself in those she has

"brooded," and she has thought us hitherto most restrained and

proper--as, indeed, have we not been?) Arthur and I exchanged tokens of

truce: in a little while off went my aunt to bed, leaving us alone.

Then, for he is the one of us that I am most frank with: "Arthur," cried

I, and up came your little locket like a bucket from a well, for him to

have his first sight of you, my Beloved. He objected that he could not

see faces in a nutshell; and I suppose others cannot: only I.

He, too, is gone. If you had been coming he would have spared another

day--for to-day was planned and dated, you will remember--and we would

have ridden halfway to meet you. But, as fate has tripped you, and made

all comings on your part indefinite, he sends you his hopes for a later

meeting.

How is your poor foot? I suppose, as it is ill, I may send it a kiss by

post and wish it well? I do. Truly, you are to let me know if it gives

you much pain, and I will lie awake thinking of you. This is not

sentimental, for if one knows that a friend is occupied over one's

sleeplessness one feels the comfort.




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