point of starting for a long stay abroad, and the other letters were all from different places on the other side.  Once in awhile a familiar name cropped up, but never to give any clew.  There were plenty of people whom she called by their Christian names, but that helped nothing.  And often she referred to their engagement—­to their marriage to come.  It was hard for the boy’s mother, who believed she had had his confidence.  But there was one letter from Vienna that made her lighter-hearted as to that.

“My dear sweet darling,” it began, “I haven’t written you very often from here, but then I don’t believe you know the difference, for you never scold at all, even if I’m ever so long in writing.  And as for you, you rascal, you write less and less, and shorter and shorter.  If I didn’t know for certain—­but then, of course, you love me?  Don’t you, you dearest boy?  Of course you do, and who wouldn’t?  Now don’t think I’m really so conceited as that, for I only mean it in joke, but in earnest, I might think it if I let myself, for they make such a fuss over me here—­you never saw anything like it!  The Prince von H——­ told Mamma yesterday I was the prettiest girl who had been here in ten years—­what do you think of that, sir?  The officers are as thick as bees wherever I go, and I ride with them and dance with them and am having just the loveliest time!  You don’t mind that, do you, darling, even if we are engaged?  Oh, about telling your mother—­no, sir, you just cannot!  You’ve begged me all along to do that, but you might as well stop, for I won’t.  You write more about that than anything else, it seems to me, and I’ll believe soon you are more in love with your mother than with me.  So take care!  Remember, you promised that night at the hop at West Point—­what centuries ago it seems, and it was a year and a half!—­that you would not tell a living soul, not even your mother, until I said so.  You see, it might get out and—­oh, what’s the use of fussing?  It might spoil all my good time, and though I’m just as devoted as ever, and as much in love, you big, handsome thing—­yes, just exactly!—­still, I want to have a good time.  Why shouldn’t I?  As the Prince would say, I’m pretty enough—­but that’s nonsense, of course.”

The letter was signed like all the others “Good Queen Bess,” a foolish enough name for a girl to call herself, the boy’s mother thought, a touch contemptuously.  She sat several minutes with that letter in her hand.

“I’ll believe soon that you are more in love with your mother than you are with me”—­that soothed the sore spot in her heart wonderfully.  Wasn’t it so, perhaps.  It seemed to her that the boy had fallen into this affair suddenly, impulsively, without realizing its meaning, and that his loyalty had held him fast, after the glamour was gone.  And perhaps the girl, too.  For the boy had much besides himself, and there were girls who might think of that.

The next letter went far to confirm this theory.