“How many were there?” asked her brother, grimly.
“Seven in all. He must have written to her every day until he received your letter that she was dead. And such letters! fully of the silliest love. Pah!” cried the girl, who despised the letters because they were written to her rival.
If they had been intended for her—jealous, envious Maybelle—she would have wished them framed in gold and precious stones.
For what is so dear to a woman’s heart as a love letter from the man she adores?
The mere sight of it makes the blood bound gladly through her frame, and brightens eye and cheek with joy.
The touch of it makes her fingers tingle with delight.
She reads it over and over in the solitude of her own chamber, and kisses it as fondly as if it were the face of her beloved.
She carries it in her bosom by day, and places it beneath her pillow, to bring blissful dreams, by night.
All this bliss of which Maybelle had robbed bonny Floy was hers now, and the angry girl’s bosom throbbed with the awful pain of jealousy as she realized how her sweet rival would rejoice over those ardent words of love sprinkled like diamonds over the pages he had written for her comfort while they were sundered one from each other.
“I thought of thee—I thought of thee