“You will marry someone much more worthy of you than I am,” he assured her. She said that was as might be. She hoped she would love someone again. But she never did, Carin. All of her life she has had to see her kin leaving her, either to go to some other part of the country, or into the family vault, and never once has she met anyone she could care for. But she says she has been quite happy after all.
“I love life,” she told me. “I like to watch the seasons roll around, and I enjoy each one as it comes. I am never tired of walking about my woods and my garden, and it amuses me to care for my old house. I enjoy my books, my music and my thoughts. Sometimes I am glad that I never married. I have fallen into very quiet ways, and it would disturb me to have anyone about, except someone like yourself, Azalea.”
When I see her, so shy and dainty and content, going about her little duties and hospitalities, I am glad, too, that she did not marry. She is like a little domestic nun. I like her the way she is.
Uncle and Aunt Lorena called this morning to ask me when I was coming home, and I told them I would come any time they liked, and they wanted me to go with them at once, but Miss Ravanel begged that I might stay over one Sunday more. She wants to teach me to make Washington pie, and we both want to finish “Lorna Doone.” So I am staying. I’m much happier. This is just a line to tell you.
Your own
Azalea.
Mallowbanks, February 10.
Dearest Carin:
We are getting ready to go to England. Aunt Lorena is having a charming outfit made for me. Now that she and I really understand each other, we are getting along together beautifully. You see, she is a frank, straight-forward, fair-minded woman and she couldn’t enjoy herself while she thought I was not being fairly treated. But now that I know everything, and that she sees I have the courage to make my choice, she feels better about it all.
I wish you could see my new clothes. They are delightful, and so becoming! They are very practical too. We are not going to take quantities of things, because it would only bother us. But I have my traveling suit of Scotch cloth in a small blue and green plaid, and a hat of blue silk braid trimmed with green, and a steamer rug and coat that look well with it; and then two little silks for dinner, nights when we are stopping at any rather fashionable places—one of old rose, and the other of dove color. The pink will be for gay moods, the dove color for pensive ones. Then there is my street suit of tan with shoes and gloves to suit, and the cleverest hat you ever saw, with two big tawny chrysanthemums on it. I don’t seem to be very good at describing clothes, but really, as I said at the beginning, these things are charming.