"I shall not publish them myself—nor ever give anybody else a chance to publish them!" I declared. "By rights they are not really mine! I am just their guardian, because Aunt Patricia couldn't take them on her journey with her—and some day I shall take them on a journey with me. To Colmere Abbey—that dream-house of mine! That's the thing to do! And burn them on the hearth in the library, where she likely burned his—if she did burn them! Of course I can't run the risk of what the next generation might do!"
This last thought tormented me as I fell asleep.
"No, I can not hand those letters down to my daughters," I decided drowsily, being in that hazy state where the mind traverses unheard-of fields—unheard-of for waking thought—and queer little twisting decisions come. "They would never be able to understand!"
I was aroused by this hypothesis into sudden wakefulness.
"Of course they could not understand—me or my feelings!" I muttered, sitting up in bed and facing the darkness defiantly. "They could not—if—if they were Guilford's daughters, too!"
CHAPTER V
ET TU, BRUTE!
My first waking thought the next morning had nothing on earth to do with the dilemma of the day before. I stretched my arms lazily, then a little shrinkingly, as I remembered what the daily grind would be. There was to be a Flag Day celebration of the Daughters of the American Revolution—and I was to report Major Coleman's speech. That's why I shrank. I am not a society woman.
"D. A. R.," I grumbled, jumping out of bed and going across to the window to see what kind of day we were going to have.—"D-a-r-n!"
Anyway, the day was all right, and after waving a welcome to the sun—whose devout worshiper I am—I rubbed a circle of dust off the mirror and looked at myself. Every woman has distinctly pretty days—and distinctly homely ones; and usually the homely ones come to the front viciously when you're booked for something extraordinary. However, this proved to be one of my good-looking periods, and out of sheer gratitude I polished off the whole expanse of the mirror. Incidentally, I am not an absolutely dustless housekeeper, in spite of my craze for simplicity. I consider that there are only two things that need be kept passionately clean in this life—the human skin and the refrigerator.
"Are you going to dress for the fête—before you go to the office?" mother inquired rebelliously, as she saw me arranging my hair with that look of masculine expectation later on in the morning. "Why don't you get your other work off, then come back home and dress?"