"I could save her the trouble of her speculations, for I know John M. pretty well, and the number of times he has changed his mind in the course of his life cannot be more than six! But Isabel argues that he reversed his decision once before on a matter in which the ingenious Mr. Wilkinson figured, and so he may do again. But up to now there are no signs of any such happy conclusion, for Mr. Hurd stands on his promise that if Isabel marries Charlie, her doom will be on her own head, so to speak. He has more than once thrown out the fine old conventional paternal threat—'not one penny, and so forth'—which would give me, I admit, far more concern than it seems to occasion either of the interested parties.
"Certainly Mr. Hurd has thus far given an excellent imitation of a very fair grade of adamant, as Charlie puts it. He concedes nothing that he doesn't have to. He says Isabel is of age and can legally marry whom she pleases, but if she pleases to marry Charles Wilkinson, the Hurds' roof shall not be the scene of the function. Charlie's obvious retort to this was that this didn't cause him very much disappointment, as Mr. Hurd's or any one else's roof seemed a curious and somewhat inappropriate place for a marriage ceremony, anyway, and he didn't think the prospect of himself and his ushers being obliged to reach the altar by crawling out of a scuttle would lend to the occasion a dignity strictly in accordance with his well-known reputation for always doing things in correct form.
"So the pair of them are now trying to decide whether to have a church ceremony or to run away—practically—and be married without any society annex whatever to the affair. I myself rather favor the latter, but Charlie is quite keen for the church. He is really very proud of Isabel, and so far as I can make out he would like a big wedding to advertise, as it were, his achievement in getting her. And then he adds as usual that his tailor and other similar friends ought to be considered, and the more important the function the firmer his future credit will be.
"Meanwhile time flies, and poor Mrs. Hurd is torn by conflicting desires. All her life, you see, she has subordinated herself to every whim and opinion of her husband and repressed every natural inclination and desire. How you would love her! And now she finds to her surprise that her natural affection for her daughter is in danger of taking her off her feet. I really believe there have been some painful scenes between the poor lady and John M.—and there may be some more if Mrs. Hurd's newly awakened self-assertiveness grows more positive and Mr. Hurd remains inflexible.
"Through all of this I keep the comparatively noiseless tenor of my way, and plots, counterplots, and cabals seethe deliciously round me. I've been having a simply splendid time, and I've discovered that the actual cause of my enjoyment is the most primitive one imaginable,—I love a romance, and a real romance ought to end in a wedding, just as this one is presently going to do. I can hear your comment on this: 'Good heavens! that Maitland girl is exactly like all the rest!' Well, perhaps I am; cut my acquaintance if you wish—but I have confessed the truth to you.
"Charlie is much improved, I think. He is as cheerful and as inconsequent as ever, and his plans for the future seem to me, although I am not a practical woman of business, more sketchy than well defined. Sometimes, after listening to him, I have come to the conclusion that even so attractive a quality as absolute optimism can be overdone, and that the principle of never crossing a bridge before you come to it can reasonably be modified by observing before you actually get to the water whether there is any bridge at all or whether you will have to swim for the opposite bank. However, one saving grace is the fact that Charlie seems genuinely in love with Isabel, if I know any of the signs, and in contemplating the future he even talks of going to work, if the need should ever arise for that radical departure from his whole life scheme. Of course, as says, he probably wouldn't do it, but that he should even think of it he conceives to be a sign of inherent nobility.
"Were it not for this excitement, I am afraid Boston would be a little dull. I am reluctant to put such a confession in writing, for some one has quite truly remarked that to say of any place that it is dull is too often a confession of one's own dullness, but I am going to be honest about it. Do you suppose it is because New York, after being denied by me so long, will have its hour?—or is this a permanent thing? Somehow I cannot get away from the feeling that Boston is small and narrow and cold. Perhaps it is because of the wonderful life that thrills through almost everything in New York—even through the things one dislikes. But I don't expect you to answer that, because I don't believe you dislike anything thoroughly characteristic of New York; I remember you once took me to a Broadway musical comedy and said you enjoyed it.
"It is a long time since you were in Boston. Are you likely to come here again within a month or two? If not, I wish you would write me all the news of the Guardian and all about the great legal fight which you and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are waging against the octopus. I try to keep in touch with it through Uncle Silas, who of course is intensely interested and who seems another man of late, but he has not your gift of explaining in words of one syllable. Have you ever thought of getting out a textbook of 'First Principles' of anything, for juvenile intellects of all ages? I am not wholly making fun.
"Yours faithfully,