Katherine Miles Stanton.
I am sending with this a little old jewel I found at an old shop the other day; it is a love ring of the sixteenth century. Perhaps you will find a place for it. I send it with my love.
K. M. S.
IV
Letter to Mrs. Henry A. Austin, Troy, N.Y.
Venice, Thursday.
Dear Gertrude:
You will be very much surprised to hear from me, I imagine, as a correspondence is something we could never keep up. But our friendship has lasted without it a long time, my dear girl—forty-two years—for we met when I was fourteen. I haven't forgotten yet how the whole school became bearable after you took possession of the other little white cot in my room. It's a year and a half now since I've seen you, and I've missed you. Troy is so near; and yet, after all, it is so far, too, when we realize how seldom we meet. You must give me a whole winter soon! Yes, for I am going to be alone; Rob is going to marry, and that's why I am writing you. It is to a Miss Lucy Stone, of Troy. Do write me about her. Do you know the family? Are they friends of yours? Rob is fearfully and wonderfully in love; and I can't blame him after seeing her picture. She is lovely (and charmingly dressed), and I am sure Rob would never fall in love with any one but a lady. Still, I want to know if she, or rather her family, are really smart people, or what. Even if they are "what," I'm sure it won't make any difference to Rob, and so it mustn't make any difference to me. But it will be a relief to know that they are friends of yours, or even that you know them. I pretend not to believe in class distinctions, and I don't; but when it comes to your own son, somehow or other you do want him to choose his wife among his own social equals. Between you and me I am just about broken-hearted. I know it is very wrong of me, but I had sort of let myself grow very dependent upon him, and always had looked upon his marriage much as one looks upon death, as inevitable, but always remote and the end of all things. It still seems like the end of all things, but in time I shall get used to it. I feel simply ashamed of myself for feeling as I do now. Of course, if it were given me the choice, "your son's happiness, woman, or your own selfish comfort," I wouldn't hesitate a moment, but it's so hard for a mother who has spent such happy years with her son to realize that his happiness does altogether and absolutely depend on some one else, and on that one and no other? And then we always have that terrible doubt,—has he chosen the right woman for him? Just as if he wasn't, after all, the best judge for himself. Of course he is; and in time I know I shall be able to thank God he made this choice, but just now—just to-night—it seems to me I come nearer to envying you your childless wifehood than I would ever have thought possible.
Being in this sentimental, unreal city, doesn't help me any! Forgive this, I'm afraid morbid, letter, and believe me affectionately always—write me the truth—your school girl friend,
Kitty.