doings, and write to Father and send my weekly letter to Mother and the girls, and run off something every now and then to Billy, and answer the notes I get from Whythe and some of the kiddies around here who think they’re grown, I don’t feel like writing on a book, which is why I haven’t begun one yet.  I will never be able to write one that tells of dark deeds and treacherous doings and love-sick lovers, or one which has suspended interest or rapid action and narrow escapes, for I know very little of such things, and I will never do much with plots.  The people I know do not have very exciting lives and here in Twickenham they trot along and do the same thing over and over, and one day is very much like the other, so there isn’t much inspiration for a thriller, and thrillers are the style in books to-day.  That is one reason I thought I had better wait until the style changes and while waiting enjoy myself with the people here who know how to do that better than any people on earth.  I’m enjoying myself all right.

Of course, now that I am in love, I could write volumes on how scrumptious it is and how floppy I feel whenever I see Whythe, especially when he keeps his deep, dark eyes on me as if he were trying to read my soul when we happen to meet at the foot of the hill and sit on the worm fence for a while.  I don’t think he is trying to really read my soul, for he isn’t much on reading anything, but he certainly can say beautiful things.  They aren’t so, but they sound well, and I must admit I enjoy hearing them.  They make me feel so grown-upy, and then, too, it will be a great help when I begin my book to remember what a man says on certain occasions and how he says it.  They are natural couriers, the men in this town are, but they don’t always mean to be taken in earnest, and Mr. James Burke came near getting in an awful mess by paying a girl a lot of compliments he oughtn’t to have paid, he being a married man and she not knowing it.  She was a very serious person and believed all that was told her and came near breaking her engagement with another man on account of the pretty speeches Mr. Burke made to her.  She was from Rhode Island and visiting May Strudwick, who told her for mercy’s sake not to pay any attention to speeches of that sort and to hold on to the Rhode-Islander, for Mr. Burke said the same fluff to all the girls who came to Twickenham, and as long as it was just eyebrows and things of that kind no harm was done.  But she couldn’t understand and went home sooner than she expected.  I understand.  It’s lots of fun—­the different ways of saying the same thing—­and all enlightenment is advantageous.

A few nights ago Whythe got fearfully sentimental and said all sorts of thrilly, foolish nonsense, and the way he said it certainly added to its enjoyment.  He’s a corking courter, and if he could teach the way he does it he would have crowded classes all right.  We were at Bessie Debree’s party, and just before supper we went out on the side porch, which has bushels of roses on it and no lights, and sat down on a rustic bench in the corner where we could hear the music and see the moon and not be seen, and the minute we sat I knew what was coming.