For a moment I could not understand how I came to be in bed. Then I remembered and throwing off my negligee and putting on a little afternoon gown, I twisted up my hair into a careless knot and hurried to the door. The ring had been the postman's. The afternoon newspapers lay upon the floor. With them was a letter with my former name upon it in a handwriting that I knew. It had been forwarded from my old boarding house. The superscription looked queer to me, as if it were the name of some one I had known long ago.
"Miss Margaret Spencer," and then, in the crabbed handwriting of my dear old landlady, "care of Mrs. Richard Graham."
I opened the letter slowly. It bore a New Orleans heading, and a date three days before.
"Dear little girl:
"A year is a long time between letters, isn't it? But you know I told you when I left that the chances were Slim for getting a letter back from the wild territory where I was going, and I found when I reached there that 'slim' was hardly the word. I wrote you twice, but have no hope that the letters ever reached you. But now I am back in God's country, or shall be when I get North, and of course, my first line is to you. I am writing this to the old place, knowing it will be forwarded if you have left there.
"I shall be in New York two weeks from today, the 24th. Of course I shall go to my old diggings. Telephone me there, so that I can see you as soon as possible. I am looking forward to a real dinner, at a real restaurant, with the realest girl in the world opposite me the first day I strike New York, so get ready for me. I do hope you have been well and as cheerful as possible. I know what a struggle this year must have been for you.
"Till I see you, dear, always your
"JACK."
I finished the reading of the letter with mingled feelings of joy and dismay. Joy was the stronger, however. Dear old Jack was safe at home. But there were adjustments which I must make. I had my marriage to explain to Jack, and Jack to explain to Dicky. Nothing but this letter could have so revealed to me the strength of the infatuation for Dicky which had swept me off my feet and resulted in my marriage after only a six months' acquaintance. Reading it I realized that the memory of Jack had been so pushed into the background during the past six months that I never had thought to tell Dicky about him.
"You've made a great conquest," said Dicky that evening when we were finishing dinner, "Lil thinks you're about the nicest little piece of calico she has ever measured—those were her own words. She's planning a frolic for the crowd some night at your convenience."