POLLY BOLES.
TILLY SNOWDEN TO POLLY BOLES
June 6.
DEAR POLLY:
The very particular something to talk to Ben about to-night is the identical something for every other night. And nothing could be more characteristic of you, as soon as you heard that my visit would clash with one of his, than your eagerness to push me partly out of the house in a hurried letter and then push me completely out in a quiet postscript. Being a woman, I understand your temptation and your tactics. I fully sympathise with you.
Continue in ease of mind, my most trusted intimate. I shall not drop in to interrupt you and Ben—both not so young as you once were and both getting stout—heavy Polly, heavy Ben—as you sit side by side in your little Franklin Flat parlour. That parlour always suggests to me an enormous turnip hollowed out square: with no windows; with a hole on one side to come in and a hole on the other side to go out; upholstered in enormous bunches of beets and horse-radish, and lighted with a wilted electric sunflower. There you two will sit to-night, heavy Polly, heavy Ben, suffocating for fresh air and murmuring to each other as you have murmured for years:
"I do! I do!"
"I do! I do!"
One sentence in your letter, Polly dear, takes your photograph like a camera; the result is a striking likeness. That sentence is this:
"Why not let him suffer awhile? I will explain afterwards."