"Don't torture me, Flora!" I pleaded, "either send me away, or—"
"Stop pestering me ... let's talk ... read me some of that Tennyson you gave me...." and I began reading aloud, for there was nothing else she would for the moment, have me do....
"You're a poet," whimsically, "I want you to write some letters to me because I know you must write beautiful."
"—if you will only let me love you!"
"Well, ain't I lettin' you love me?"
A perverse look came into her face, a thought, an idea that pleased her—
"I've lots and lots of letters from men," she began, "men that have been in love with me."
"Oh!" I exclaimed weakly ... she had just expressed a desire to add some of mine to the pack ... the next thing that she followed up with gave me a start—
"Your father—"