“Eve,” said I, somewhat sternly, “you will never learn English properly if you do not attend to my instructions. You is plural, though I am singular, and if you address me thus you must say you are not you is.”
“You are right in saying you are singular,” interposed Aunt Temple, who was rather sharp witted, and had intensely black eyes. Eve had called her “aunt” by mistake at first, and now stuck to it.
“I don’t think there is another man in the district,” continued the matron, “who would take so long to write a short letter. You said it was going to be short didn’t you?”
“Yes—short and sweet; though I doubt if the dear old man will think it so at first. But he’ll change his mind when he gets here.”
“No doubt we will convert him,” said Aunt Temple.
“Eve will, at all events,” said I.
There was not much more said at that dinner which calls for record. I will therefore return to the attic-room and the letter.
After at least another hour of effort, I succeeded in finishing my task, though not entirely to my satisfaction. As the letter was of considerable importance and interest—at least to those concerned—I now lay it before the reader. It ran thus:—
“My Dear Father,
“I scarcely know how to tell you—or how to begin, for I fear that you will not only be very much surprised, but perhaps, displeased by what I have to write. But let me assure you, dear father, that I cannot help it! It almost seems as if the thing had been arranged for me, and as if I had had no say in the matter. The fact is that I have left the service of the Fur-Traders, and am engaged to be married to a dear beautiful half-caste girl (quite a lady, however, I assure you), and have made up my mind to become a farmer in one of the wildest parts of Colorado! There—I’ve made a clean breast of it, and if that does not take away your breath, nothing will! But I write in all humility, dearest father. Do not fancy that, having taken the bit in my teeth, I tell you all this defiantly. Very far from it. Had it been possible, nothing would have gratified me more than to have consulted you, and asked your approval and blessing, but with three thousand miles of ocean, and I know not how many hundred miles of land between us, that you know, was out of the question; besides, it could not have altered matters, for the thing is fixed.