Bud was not slow to take the opportunity. For half an hour she sat at the kitchen table and searched her soul for fitting words that would convey Kate's adoration. Once or twice the maid asked what she was writing, but all she said was: “Don't worry, Kate. I'm right in the throes.” There were blots and there were erasions, but something like this did the epistle look when it was done:
“My adorable Charles,—I am writing this letter to let you know how much I truly love you. Oh Charles, dear, you are the Joy of my heart. I am thinking of you so often, often, till my Heart just aches. It is lovely wether here at present. Now I will tell you all about the Games. They took place in a park near here Friday and there was seventeen beautiful dances. They danced to give you spassums. One of them was a Noble youth. He was a Prince in his own write, under Spells for sevn years. When he danced, lo and behold he was the admiration of all Beholders. Alas? poor youth. When I say alas I mean that it was so sad being like that full of Spells in the flower of his youth. He looked at me so sad when he was dancing, and I was so glad. It was just like money from home. Dear Charles, I will tell you all about myself. I am full of goodness most the time for God loves good people. But sometimes I am not and I have a temper like two crost sticks when I must pray to be changed. The dancing gentleman truly loves me to destruction. He kissed my hand and hastily mountain his noble steed, galoped furiously away. Ah, the coarse of true love never did run smooth. Perhaps he will fall upon the forein plain. Dearest Charles—adorable—I must now tell you that I am being educated for my proper station in life. There is Geograpy, and penmanship with the right commas, and Long Division and conjunctives which I abominate. But my teacher, a sweet lady named Miss Alison Dyce, says they are all truly refining. Oh I am weary, weary, he cometh not. That is for you, darling Charles, my own.—Your true heart love, Kate MacNeill.”
“Is that all right?” asked Bud, anxiously.
“Yes; at least it 'll do fine,” said the maid, with that Highland politeness that is often so bad for business. “There's not much about himself in it, but och! it 'll do fine. It's as nice a letter as ever I saw: the lines are all that straight.”
“But there's blots,” said Bud, regretfully. “There oughtn't to be blots in a real love-letter.”
“Toots! just put a cross beside each of them, and write 'this is a kiss,”' said Kate, who must have had some previous experience. “You forgot to ask him how's his health, as it leaves us at present.”
So Bud completed the letter as instructed. “Now for the envelope,” said she.
“I'll put the address on it myself,” said Kate, confused. “He would be sure somebody else had been reading it if the address was not in my hand of write”—an odd excuse, whose absurdity escaped the child. So the maid put the letter in the bosom of her Sunday gown against her heart, where meanwhile dwelt the only Charles. It is, I sometimes think, where we should all deposit and retain our love-letters; for the lad and lass, as we must think of them, have no existence any more than poor Kate's Charles.
119
Two days passed. Often in those two days would Bud come, asking anxiously if there was any answer yet from Charles. As often the maid of Colonsay reddened, and said with resignation there was not so much as the scrape of a pen. “He'll be on the sea,” she explained at last, “and not near a post-office. Stop you till he gets near a post-office, and you'll see the fine letter I'll get.”