You’ll get tired of reading these long epistles. Don’t forget me, Victor! I think of you every single second.
Hans Crescent, London,
Victor dear, I cried when I read your letter. I love to have you feel that way about me, but I’m not worthy of it.
I did wish for you yesterday. We went to Hampton Court, which is very historical, but the flowers are lovely. I saw a brown butterfly on a blue Canterbury bell, they were just the colors of that old dress I was wearing the first day we met, when you pretended you thought some bows of ribbon on it were butterflies—do you remember? But I know you don’t.
You needn’t be jealous of Mr. Thompson, for I never was so disappointed in anyone in my whole life. He is not a gentleman. Yesterday at Hampton Court he made an excuse to get me away from the others, to feed the swans, he said, and then proposed, apparently taking it for granted that my answer would, of course, be “yes.” When I said, which was true, that I was completely taken by surprise, he said “Tell us another one!” and that I had led him on! I never want to see him again as long as I live, and I cried myself to sleep last night.
Oh, Victor, I do miss you so! And I do love you!
Hans Crescent, London,
Dear Victor:
I wrote you a dreadfully silly letter yesterday, which you mustn’t pay any attention to. I was tired and nervous, and got somewhat hysterical.
We leave tomorrow for Windermere. I am looking forward very much to seeing the Lakes. We will be travelling about so much that I’m afraid I won’t be able to write very often, the days are so full and I am so tired when evening comes. But even if I haven’t time to write I will often be thinking of all my friends at home.
London,
Oh, Victor, what made me post such a horrible letter to you this morning? Can you ever forgive me and love me again? I didn’t mean one word of it! Victor, if you ever stop loving me I will die.
Old Waverley Hotel, Edinburgh,
Dear Victor:
I’m so ashamed of not having written for such ages, but we have been on the go so hard. If I wrote a letter every time I thought of you, you would be swamped, and anyway I cannot write about the beautiful and quaint and wonderful things I see in a way that will convey any idea of their loveliness. Sir Walter Scott has described “Bonny Scotland” much better than I can, and then so many things over here are remarkable for nothing else than their oddness. But how often I wish you were here to see everything with me!
We are seeing things under the very best auspices, as a very nice young man, the Honorable Ronald Marcy-Prince, who is travelling with his tutor, has practically attached himself to us, and is most kind about escorting the Mater and me on sightseeing expeditions when the Pater prefers a nap (which I must confess is most of the time.) The Honorable Ronald is the son of Lord Burketter, if you please, so we have the greatest attention wherever we go! I must say the importance the English attach to a title amuses me intensely!
Scotland is adorable but so misty it is hard to keep your bangs looking like anything, and for the last two days we have been enjoying (?) a pouring rain storm. I am too sleepy to keep my eyes open any longer, but will write a real letter soon.
XXI
Victor, like Lucy’s ship, went up and down, as his angel’s voice called to him from across the sea that she was missing him so that she nearly died, or that the gentlemen of Ireland were the most awful flatterers, but somehow you couldn’t get angry. He was working in the real estate office of Uncle Willie’s friend, Mr. Vernon Johnson. Every morning he yawned down the lane through the morning mists and boarded the 7:17 to Wilmington, carrying a lawyer’s green bag that May had made for him, that held three soda biscuits with ham inside them, three with apple jelly, an orange or a pear, and a volume of Zola in French to read on the train, more to impress his fellow travellers than for his own enjoyment.
He sat at his desk and licked stamps, led prospective customers to small brick houses, and swept out the office when the janitor was drunk, through a pink and
