Enclosed in this letter was a slip from Paul with these words:
"Gerty says she has told you how much we like the house; but she could not, in one letter, give expression to our grateful sense of your kindness. Your sister has created quite a sensation here by her beauty and artless manners. You would have been proud of her; and I can assure you her husband was, and is."
Edward was delighted at the bright prospects opening before the young couple; but his cheek flushed not a little at Gertrude's almost illegible scrawl, in which the most common words were either misspelled or misused. He had thought the letters he received in college bad enough, but this was much worse.
"Poor, mistaken, child!" he mentally exclaimed. "Instead of passing her evenings in places of amusement, she ought to be studying her spelling book, or reciting grammar to her husband."
He was so much distressed at this exhibition of her ignorance that he took the afternoon boat for Rose Cottage, as fortunately the ice had not yet closed the river. He found Hannah laughing and crying over a letter from her darling, just received.
"Shall I read it?" he asked smiling at her manifestations of delight.
"I will read it to you," was her hesitating reply. "I have read it so many times I can make it out quite well."
I will give my reader's an extract:
"Dear, dear Hannah. Have you longed for your naughty girl, who used to torment you so much? I hope you have missed me a little, for I have wanted you every hour in the day. Now don't you go and marry that funny Mr. Biles who made love to you; for I shall go to Rose Cottage in the summer to bring you to Chicago. Paul told me something about your beau. He rode with him the day he first came to see us, and the man talked so about our never having any visitors; because you wouldn't let any body come, that Paul was almost afraid to venture."
"Dear Hannah, I wish I didn't find it so hard to write for I have so much to ask you. I am very happy indeed, I mean, most of the time, but there are some things which trouble me. The first Sunday I was here, I dressed to go to church; but Paul said he was tired;—that it was his only day of rest, and he'd rather stay at home. I was very much surprised. I told him I had never staid from church in all my life, unless I was sick; but of course I couldn't go alone; so I stayed. I'm almost afraid to tell you that we worked all day arranging rooms, and then in the evening I had to sing and play tunes I never sang before on Sunday. I tried to laugh and be lively, because Paul said it was nonsense to be so squeamish; but I can't think it was right. I wish I knew what I ought to do, for I'm afraid Paul don't mean to go to church at all. He says his father and mother haven't been inside a church for years; and that it costs a great deal to hire such a pew as he would be willing to sit in. I told him I felt wicked all day, working just as if it wasn't Sunday; and he said; 'Pshaw, Gerty! I'll take care of your conscience. Your first duty is to obey your husband.'"