"Father, this is supposed to be the proper way to make love," said Nellie, and she began to read:
"'My Darling Margaret:
"'Your letter of this morning bids me with many playful thrusts to be more hopeful during your absence, which you say will be brief in one paragraph and in another that it will be "about three months." How is it possible for me to reconcile these statements? Three months may be an eternity. The criminal bound and held beneath the spigot, from which water, drop by drop, pounds with thundering impact upon his hot head, and the idlers in sylvan dells, view time differently. Your advice, though, shall be taken and followed with such will as I am able to command. Weakness, backsliding from my purpose to be as cheerful as you wish, you must forgive. If you would have me display an even interest in life, undisturbed by the moaning which creeps into these letters, you know the sure, swift course to take—the fastest express train to New York, and a telegram summoning me to the depot—that is all.
"'For the past two nights my sleep has been blessed with visions more lovely and hope inspiring. Fear has been driven away, to give place to fairer thoughts of you. Not to dream of you crowded the hours of absence too heavily upon me. Henceforth I am determined that you shall be with me in my thoughts, tenderly ministering to me with those eyes whose soft light I would have my steady beacons. Darling Margaret, their flickering, or the fear that they will flicker, sets me almost crazy.
"'Thy form appears through night, through day:
Awake, with it my fancy teems;
In sleep, it smiles in fleeting dreams—
The vision charms the hours away,
And bids me curse Aurora's ray,
For breaking slumbers of delight,
Which make me wish for endless night;
Since, oh! whate'er my future fate,
Shall joy or woe my steps await,
Tempted by love, by storms beset,
Thine image I can ne'er forget.'"
"He pursued her hard," interrupted Mr. Gibson. "I can remember when I used to feel that way about girls, but I couldn't put it on paper."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Gibson. "What you put on paper would never compromise you. The name of the man who wrote the letter, you understand, father, is not known, and neither do we know the woman. Still, I hardly think it can be one of yours, so I shan't worry. Go on, Nellie."
Nellie had observed as she paused in her reading and glanced upward, that Jim seemed much disturbed. He was very red and his eyes seemed to be afire. But Gabrielle did not give any of her attention to Jim, and Nellie was too busy with her task of deciphering my wretched manuscript to interject a gay remark at Jim's expense. Jim moistened his lips, wiped his beading brow, and nerved himself for the worst. There were now no quilts for him to dodge under, and no acute pain to serve as a standing account against which he might charge these evidences of the anguish he could not conceal.
Nellie continued, and Gabrielle forgot all about Hygeia's letter. This I think flattering to my style.
"Listen!" commanded Nellie, and again she read:
"'Yes, my darling, dreaming always of you, night and day, surely, surely, hope should inspire me. This is the place and now the time to wander in love's enchanted realm. I shall not put off till your home-coming the joys I would experience. Let my "heart be a spirit," and then I may be wafted to your side this minute and sit beside you from early morn till twilight and the even-song of birds softly and sweetly hint the flight of time. Yes—
"'He who hath loved not, here would learn that love,
And make his heart a spirit; he who knows
That tender mystery, will love the more:
For this is Love's recess, where vain men's woes,
And the world's waste, have driven him far from those—
For 'tis his nature to advance or die;
He stands not still, but or decays, or grows
Into a boundless blessing, which may vie
With the immortal lights in its eternity!'"'And now, my darling, I must not forget to remind you that you have quite overlooked my request for a lock of your golden hair. You acknowledged the receipt of mine, and asked why I did not tie it in a pretty ribbon instead of a piece of cotton thread.'"
"There is the lock of hair again!" exclaimed Gabrielle. "I saw it in the other letter when Jim was at the hospital. It was a trifle lighter than his. The poor girl—I suppose she thought it more precious than strands of pure gold."