"If I'm a boy—and I want to be a boy very much (although, perhaps, a girl would be dearer to your heart)—don't let me be either a soldier or a sailor, however much I may wish it as a Josselin or a Rohan; don't bring me up to buy or sell like a Gibson, or deal in law like a Bletchley.
"Bring me up to invent, or make something useful, if it's only pickles or soap, but not to buy and sell them; bring me up to build or heal or paint or write or make music—to help or teach or please.
"If I'm a girl, bring me up to be as much like Leah as you can, and marry me to just such another as yourself, if you can find him. Whether I'm a girl or a boy, call me Marty, that my name may rhyme with yours.
"When my conscience re‑embodies itself, I want it never to know another pang of self‑reproach. And when I'm grown up, if you think it right to do so, tell me who and what I once was, that I may love you both the more; tell me how fondly I loved you when I was a bland and fleeting little animalcule, without a body, but making my home in yours—so that when you die I may know how irrevocably bound up together we must forever be, we three; and rejoice the more in your death and Leah's and my own. Teach me over again all I've ever taught you, Barty—over and over again!
"Alas! perhaps you don't believe all this! How can I give you a sign?
"There are many ways; but a law, of necessity inexorable, forbids it. Such little entity as I possess would cease to be; it was all but lost when I saved your life—and again when I told you that you were the beloved of Julia Royce. It would not do for us Martians to meddle with earthly things; the fat would soon be in the fire, I can tell you!
"Try and trust me, Barty, and give me the benefit of any doubt.
"You have work planned out for many years to come, and are now yourself so trained that you can do without me. You know what you have still to say to mankind; never write a line about which you are not sure.
"For another night or two you will be my host, and this splendid frame of yours my hostelry; on y est très bien. Be hospitable still for a little while—make the most of me; hug me tight, squeeze me warm!
"As soon as Leah is up and about and herself again you will know me no more, and no more feel the north.