“If he really loves you,” said Jane, “the letter won’t matter.”  There was a thrill in her voice.  Had I not been uneasy at my deciet, I to would have thrilled.

Some fresh muffins came in just then and I was starveing.  But I waved them away, and stood staring at the fire.

I am writing all of this as truthfully as I can.  I am not defending myself.  What I did I was driven to, as any one can see.  It takes a real shock to make the average Familey wake up to the fact that the youngest daughter is not the Familey baby at seventeen.  All I was doing was furnishing the shock.  If things turned out badly, as they did, it was because I rather overdid the thing.  That is all.  My motives were perfectly ireproachible.

Well, they fell on the muffins like pigs, and I could hardly stand it.  So I wandered into the den, and it occurred to me to write the letter then.  I felt that they all expected me to do something anyhow.

If I had never written the wretched letter things would be better now.  As I say, I overdid.  But everything had gone so smoothly all day that I was decieved.  But the real reason was a new set of furs.  I had secured the dresses and the promise of the necklace on a Poem and a Photograph, and I thought that a good love letter might bring a muff.  It all shows that it does not do to be grasping.

Had I not written the letter, there would have been no tradgedy.

But I wrote it and if I do say it, it was a letter.  I commenced it “Darling,” and I said I was mad to see him, and that I would always love him.  But I told him that the Familey objected to him, and that this was to end everything between us.  They had started the phonograph in the library, and were playing “The Rosary.”  So I ended with a verse from that.  It was really a most affecting letter.  I almost wept over it myself, because, if there had been a Harold, it would have broken his Heart.

Of course I meant to give it to Hannah to mail, and she would give it to mother.  Then, after the family had read it and it had got in its work, including the set of furs, they were welcome to mail it.  It would go to the Dead Letter Office, since there was no Harold.  It could not come back to me, for I had only signed it “Barbara.”  I had it all figured out carefully.  It looked as if I had everything to gain, including the furs, and nothing to lose.  Alas, how little I knew!

“The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglay.”  Burns.

Carter Brooks ambled into the room just as I sealed it and stood gazing down at me.

“You’re quite a Person these days, Bab,” he said.  “I suppose all the customary Xmas kisses are being saved this year for what’s his name.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“For Harold.  You know, Bab, I think I could bear up better if his name wasn’t Harold.”