“Keefe,” I wrote him, “please excuse me for being a bold-faced minx. I must be one, or I wouldn’t have sent you poems and violets and things. Kindly observe this drawing of a cat. It is a cat, I don’t care what you say. She looks as I feel, somewhat cramped. But she is a good cat, and I am a good, obedient girl. I shall waste no more stamps on you. I am going to England, and I am commanded to be very happy. So, since I am obedient, pray think of me as being not only happy but gay.”
I signed my name to it—just “Azalea”—and sent it off. Now I shall write no more.
Farewell,
Azalea.
P.S. I wish you could see my traveling veil. It looks like a peacock’s breast. Clothes are nice, aren’t they? I never realized before how nice they are.
CHAPTER XII
A TRAVEL LOG
London! London! London!
April tenth.
Carin, my dear:
I haven’t been writing to you because I haven’t thought best. I didn’t want to put myself on record. I have been keeping my thoughts to myself, and I never could have done that successfully if I had been gossiping to you, could I? Anyway, I knew you were particularly happy and busy. You were down to Lee for the spring vacation I suppose and opened up the Shoals, and had your own Vance Grévy there, and delightful people to meet him and all that. Then you went back to Vassar. And in two months you will be graduating, and then you and your people will come over to Europe, bringing, I hope, Annie Laurie with you. I believe you agreed with me that it would be a fine thing for both of you if she would join you.
As for me, I have been living in two worlds at once: this mellow, storied world of England, and my own little secret world of memories and dreams. We have had unusual opportunities for seeing the real English life. Both Aunt Lorena and Uncle David have relatives and friends here, and we have been entertained in a number of homes very graciously indeed.