can.  He is very busy just now with something he must finish, and perhaps he cannot be there.  Tom is going, and Fred Raymond, and Billy Peterkin—­quite a turn-out from Shannondale.

’I can hardly wait to see you.  Only think, it is almost two years since I said good-bye; for we went to Europe just after Harold was graduated, and your last Christmas holidays were over before we came home.

’What a long letter I have written you, and have not told you a word of my health, about which you inquired so particularly.  Did Uncle Arthur tell you anything?  I wish he had not, for it worries me to have people look, and act, and talk as if I were sick, when I am not.  If I had not a pain in my side, and a tickling cough, which keeps me awake nights and makes me sweat until my hair is wet, I should be perfectly strong; and but for the pain and the weariness, I feel as well as I ever did; and I go out nearly every day, and I don’t want to die and leave my beautiful home, and father, and mother, and you, and—­everybody I love.  I am too young to die.  I cannot die.

’Oh, Jerrie, I am glad you are coming home!  You will do me good, just as Harold does.  He is so strong every way, and so kind I can’t begin to tell you what he has been to me since I came home in March—­more than a friend—­more than a brother.  I do not see why you never fell in love with him, thought I suppose it is living with him always, as you have, and looking upon him as a brother.

’And now I must say good-bye, for I am getting tired and must rest.  I was at the cottage this morning, and Harold is coming here this afternoon to read Tennyson’s “May Queen” to me.  He has read it a dozen times, but I am never tired of it, although it makes me cry to think of that grave in the long grass, with little Alice in it, cold and dead, listening for those she loved to come and weep over her.  You know, she says to her mother: 

    ’"I shall hear you when you pass,
     With your feet above me, in the long and pleasant grass.”

’Oh, Jerrie, if it should be—­you know what I mean; if there should come a time when people say to each other, “Maude Tracy is dead!” you’ll come often, won’t you, and think of me always as the friend, who, weak and stupid as she was, loved you dearly—­dearly.

    ’Now, good-bye again.  Harold has just come in, and says, “Remember
    me to Jerrie, and tell her I shall hope to see her graduated, but do
    not know, I am so busy.”

    ’Truly and lovingly,

    ‘MAUDE TRACY.’

    ’P.S.—­Tom has come in, and says, “Give my love to Jerrie.”

    ’P.S.  No. 2.—­Dick St. Claire and Fred Raymond are here, and both
    send their regards.

    ’P.S.  No. 3.—­If you will believe me, Billy Peterkin is here,
    nibbling his little cane, and says, “Present my compliments to Miss
    Crawford.”