Dear John: 

I do not understand your letter.  You speak in affectionate terms of everybody, yet you beg me to wait and not be in a hurry to return.  Why?  Do you not realise that such words only make me the more anxious to see old Portchester again?  If there is anything amiss at home, or if James is learning to do without me—­but you do not say that; you only intimate that perhaps I will be better able to make up my mind later than now, and hint of great things to come if I will only hold my affections in check a little longer.  This is all very ambiguous and demands a fuller explanation.  So write to me once more, John, or I shall sever every engagement I have made here and return.

Dear John: 

Your letter is plain enough this time.  James read the letter I wrote you about my pleasure in the life here and was displeased at it.  He thinks I am growing worldly and losing that simplicity which he has always looked upon as my most attractive characteristic.  So! so!  Well, James is right; I am becoming less the country girl and more the woman of the world every day I remain here.  That means I am becoming less worthy of him.  So—­But whatever else I have to say on this topic must be said to him.  For this you will pardon me like the good brother you are.  I cannot help my preference.  He is nearer my own age; besides, we were made for each other.

Dear James: 

I am not worldly; I am not carried away by the pleasures and satisfactions of this place,—­at least not to the point of forgetting what is dearer and better.  I have seen Washington, I have seen gay life; I like it, but I love Portchester.  Consequently I am going to return to Portchester, and that very soon.  Indeed I cannot stay away much longer, and if you are glad of this, and if you wish to be convinced that a girl who has been wearing brocade and jewels can content herself quite gaily again with calico, come up to the dear old gate a week from now and you will have the opportunity.  Do you object to flowers?  I may wear a flower in my hair.

Your wayward but ever-constant

Agatha.

Dear James: 

Why must I write?  Why am I not content with the memory of last night?  When one’s cup is quite full, a cup that has been so long in filling,—­must some few drops escape just to show that a great joy like mine is not satisfied to be simply quiescent?  I have suffered so long from uncertainty, have tried you and tried myself with so tedious an indecision, that, now I know no other man can ever move my heart as you have done, the ecstasy of it makes me over-demonstrative.  I want to tell you that I love you; that I do not simply accept your love, but give you back in fullest measure all the devotion you have heaped upon me in spite of my many faults and failings.  You took me to your heart last night, and seemed satisfied; but it does not satisfy me that I just let you do it without telling you that I am proud and happy to be the chosen one of your heart, and that as I saw your smile and the proud passion which lit up your face, I felt how much sweeter was the dear domestic bliss you promised me than the more brilliant but colder life of a statesman’s wife in Washington.