“Oh, dear, it’s funny, but I’m not laughing. I’m trying not to cry. In the horrid, ungrateful way we have, I realise for the first time how well off I’ve been; how comfortable, and snug, and independent, and—necessary! That’s the crux of it all. I was necessary—now I’m superfluous!
“Well! here I am, you see, for the first time in twenty-six years really at grips with life, about to experience for myself the troubles and perplexities which so far have been mere matters of hearsay! I growsed and grizzled about the dulness of monotony, now I’m to taste uncertainty for a change. It may be very good for me; the vicar’s wife says—confidently!—that it will be. I can imagine myself pouring forth the most inspiriting sentiments to my next-door neighbour, similarly bound, but when You write to me, don’t be inspiriting! I pray you, don’t make the best of it! Say that it’s an unjust world; that brothers have no right to get married, and chuck their sisters; that it’s confoundedly hard lines, and that I’m a hardly used, unappreciated, despised, abandoned angel and martyr. That will buck me up, and give me courage to go on!
“But I want you to know one thing! If I could alter everything by a wave of the hand, nothing would induce me to do it! To see the cloud lifted, to watch blank eyes grow deep, and sweet, and satisfied again,—that’s a wonderful thing, and it would be a pigmy soul who did not rejoice. So think of me as I am, really happy, and truthfully thankful, but naturally a little agitated as to personal plans. Here’s an excitement for you! Guess what I’ll be, when you hear from me next!
“Superfluously,
“Katrine.”
Cable message from Dorothea Middleton to Katrine Beverley:
“October 10, 19—.
“Come immediately year’s visit. Cable dates.”
Reply cable from Katrine Beverley to Dorothea Middleton:
“October 11, 19—.