"School, Noon Recess. I met Hollis on the walk as I stood in front of Helen's—there was no need to ask. Black and white ribbon was streaming from the bell handle. I have permission to go home. I have cried all the morning. I hope I shall find Miss Prudence there. She must be so tired and worn out. Hollis looked like a ghost and his voice shook so he could scarcely speak.
"With ever so much love to all,
"YOUR SISTER LINNET.
"P. S. Hollis said he would not write this week and wants you to tell his mother all about it."
* * * * *
The next letter is dated in the early part of the following month.
"In my Den, Dec. 10, 18—,
"MY FRIEND PRUDENCE:
"My heart was with you, as you well know, all those days and nights in that sick chamber that proved to be the entrance to Heaven. She smiled and spoke, lay quiet for awhile with her eyes closed, and awoke in the presence of the Lord. May you and I depart as easily, as fearlessly. I cannot grieve as you do; how much she is saved! To-night I have been thinking over your life, and a woman's lot seems hard. To love so much, to suffer so much. You see I am desponding; I am often desponding. You must write to me and cheer me up. I am disappointed in myself. Oh how different this monotonous life from the life I planned! I dig and delve and my joy comes in my work. If it did not, where would it come in, pray? I am a joyless fellow at best. There! I will not write another word until I can give you a word of cheer. Why don't you toss me overboard? Your life is full of cheer and hard work; but I cannot be like you. Marjorie and Morris were busy at the dining-room table when I left them, with their heads together over my old Euclid. We are giving them a lift up into the sunshine and that is something. What do you want to send Marjorie to school for? What can school do for her when I give her up to you? Give yourself to her and keep her out of school. The child is not always happy. Last communion Sunday she sat next to me; she was crying softly all the time. You could have said something, but, manlike, I held my peace. I wonder whether I don't know what to say, or don't know how to say it. I seem to know what to say to you, but, truly Prudence, I don't know how to say it. I have been wanting to tell you something, fourteen, yes, fourteen years, and have not dared and do not dare to night. Sometimes I am sure I have a right, a precious right, a sacred right, and then something bids me forbear, and I forbear. I am forbearing now as I sit up here in my chamber alone, crowded in among my books and the wind is wild upon the water. I am gloomy to-night and discouraged. My book, the book I have lost myself in so long, has been refused the fourth time. Had it not been for your hand upon my arm awhile ago it would be now shrivelled and curling among the ashes on my hearth.
"Who was it that stood on London Bridge and did not throw his manuscript over? Listen! Do you hear that grand child of yours asking who it was that sat by his hearth and did not toss his manuscript into the fire? Didn't somebody in the Bible toss a roll into the fire on the hearth? I want you to come to talk to me. I want some one not wise or learned, except learned and wise in such fashion as you are, to sit here beside me, and look into the fire with me, and listen to the wind with me, and talk to me or be silent with me. If my book had been accepted, and all the world were wagging their tongues about it, I should want that unwise, unlearned somebody. That friend of mine over the water, sitting in his lonely bungalow tonight studying Hindoostanee wants somebody, too. Why did you not go with him, Prudence? Shall you never go with any one; shall you and I, so near to each other, with so much to keep us together, go always uncomforted. But you are comforted. You loved Helen, you love Linnet and Marjorie and a host of others; you do not need me to bid you be brave. You are a brave woman. I am not a brave man. I am not brave to-night, with that four-times-rejected manuscript within reach of my hand. Shall I publish it myself? I want some one to think well enough of it to take the risk.