Oh, but this is such a long letter, and it is gossipy, and scrappy.  But that’s the way we used to talk, and you seemed to like it.

And now I’ll say “Good-night.”  Pittiwitz waked up a moment ago, and walked across this sheet, and the blot is where she stepped on a word.  So that’s her message.  But my message is Psalms 27:14.  You can look it up in father’s Bible—­I am so glad you took it with you.  But perhaps you don’t have to look up verses; you probably know everything by heart.  Do you?

Sincerely ever,

MARY BALLARD.

Among the Pines.

My good little friend: 

I am not going to try to tell you what your letter meant to me.  It was the bluebird’s song in the spring, the cool breeze in the desert, sunlight after storm—­it was everything that stands for satisfaction after a season of discomfort or of discontent.

Yet, except that I miss the Tower Rooms, and miss, too, the great happiness I found in pursuing our friendship at close range, I should have no reason here either for discomfort or lack of content—­if I feel the world somewhat barren, it is not because of what I have found, but because of what I have brought with me.

I like to think of you in the Tower Rooms.  You always belonged there, and I felt like a usurper when I came and discovered that all of your rosy belongings had been moved down-stairs and my staid and stiff things were in their place.  It is queer, isn’t it, the difference in the atmosphere made by a man and by a woman.  A man dares not surround himself with pale and pretty colors and delicate and dainty things, lest he be called effeminate—­perhaps that’s why men take women into their lives, so that they may have the things which they crave without having their masculinity questioned.

Yet the atmosphere which seems to fit you best is not merely one of rosiness and prettiness; it is rather that of sunshine and out-of-doors.  When you talk or write to me I have the sensation of being swept on and on by your enthusiasms—­I seem to fly on strong wings—­the quotation which you gave is the utterance of some one else, but you unerringly selected, and passed it on to me, and so in a sense made it your own.  I am going to copy it and illumine it, and keep it where I can see it at all times.

I find that I do not travel as fast as you toward my future.  I have shut myself up for many years.  I have been so sure that all the wine of life was spilled, that the path ahead of me was dreary, that I cannot see myself at all with trumpets blowing, with flags flying and the rest of it.  Perhaps I shall some day—­and at least I shall try, and in the trying there will be something gained.  Some day, perhaps, I shall reach the upper air where you soar—­perhaps I shall “mount as an eagle.”

Your message——!  Dear child—­do you know how sweet you are?  I don’t know all the verses—­but that one I do know.  Yet I had let myself forget, and you brought it back to me with all its strong assurance.