"Had I a sister or a mother living, they would come over at once to wait on you; but I am a man literally alone in the world. I live with an old uncle who is practically an invalid. I hope you will not mind my calling upon you to-morrow, about lunch-time, when I hope so much that you in your sweetness and kindness may find it in your heart to give me another answer to the one I had to hear to-night.
"Yours ever devotedly,
"Reginald Brace."
Yes! A charming letter, I call it. I do, indeed. And he—the writer of it—is charming—that is, he's good, and "white," as men call it, which is so much more, so much better than being "charming," which, I suppose, people can't help, any more than they can help having corncockle-blue eyes with black lashes—or whatever kind of eyes they may happen to possess.
Mr. Brace's own eyes are very pleasant. So honest. It was horrid of me to be ruffled and snappy to him when he came last night; cattish of me to begin thinking of him as a Puritan and a prude and a prig. He's nothing of the sort. It was only kind of him to come and try to warn me.
And, as it turns out, Mr. Brace was perfectly right about all these people being no fit companions for a young and inexperienced girl....
Which reminds me! Only a few days ago I was considering this Mr. Brace as a possible suitor for Million herself! Why, I'd quite forgotten that. And now here he is lavishing offers of a life's devotion upon me, Miss Million's maid.
I suppose I ought to be fearfully flattered. There's something in Shakespeare about going down on one's knees and thanking Heaven fasting for a good man's love. (I'm sure he is that.) And so I should be feeling most frightfully pleased and proud, if only I'd time!
This morning I can think of nothing. Not even of my first proposal and love-letter. Only of Miss Million, whom I last saw at half-past eleven or so last night, sitting in her "cerise evenin'—one with the spangles"—at a Thousand-and-One supper-table, with a crowd of rowdy people, and having pink flowers stuck in her hair by an over-excited-looking young man!
Million, of whom I can find no further trace! Now, what is the next——