a woman is never to be a woman again, whatever she may come to as an unsexed angel,—­and that she should die unloved!  Why does not somebody come and carry off this noble woman, waiting here all ready to make a man happy?  Philip, do you know the pathos there is in the eyes of unsought women, oppressed with the burden of an inner life unshared?  I can see into them now as I could not in those earlier days.  I sometimes think their pupils dilate on purpose to let my consciousness glide through them; indeed, I dread them, I come so close to the nerve of the soul itself in these momentary intimacies.  You used to tell me I was a Turk,—­that my heart was full of pigeon-holes, with accommodations inside for a whole flock of doves.  I don’t know but I am still as Youngish as ever in my ways,—­Brigham-Youngish, I mean; at any rate, I always want to give a little love to all the poor things that cannot have a whole man to themselves.  If they would only be contented with a little!

Here now are two girls in this school where I am teaching.  One of them, Rosa M., is not more than sixteen years old, I think they say; but Nature has forced her into a tropical luxuriance of beauty, as if it were July with her, instead of May.  I suppose it is all natural enough that this girl should like a young man’s attention, even if he were a grave schoolmaster; but the eloquence of this young thing’s look is unmistakable,—­and yet she does not know the language it is talking,—­they none of them do; and there is where a good many poor creatures of our good-for-nothing sex are mistaken.  There is no danger of my being rash, but I think this girl will cost somebody his life yet.  She is one of those women men make a quarrel about and fight to the death for,—­the old feral instinct, you know.

Pray, don’t think I am lost in conceit, but there is another girl here that I begin to think looks with a certain kindness on me.  Her name is Elsie V., and she is the only daughter and heiress of an old family in this place.  She is a portentous and mysterious creature.  If I should tell you all I know and half of what I fancy about her, you would tell me to get my life insured at once.  Yet she is the most painfully interesting being,—­so handsome! so lonely!—­for she has no friends among the girls, and sits apart from them,—­with black hair like the flow of a mountain-brook after a thaw, with a low-browed, scowling beauty of face, and such eyes as were never seen before, I really believe, in any human creature.

Philip, I don’t know what to say about this Elsie.  There is a mystery around her I have not fathomed.  I have conjectures about her which I could not utter to any living soul.  I dare not even hint the possibilities which have suggested themselves to me.  This I will say,—­that I do take the most intense interest in this young person, an interest much more like pity than love in its common sense.  If what I guess at is true, of all the tragedies of existence I ever knew this is the saddest, and yet so full of meaning!  Do not ask me any questions,—­I have said more than I meant to already; but I am involved in strange doubts and perplexities,—­in dangers too, very possibly,—­and it is a relief just to speak ever so guardedly of them to an early and faithful friend.