re, and make us all sorry
to lose you if you do not return. I have told your friend Vincent
he can come, and I think he is more likely to stay than you are,
because he is more himself. I don't suppose that he took in the
whole place and the idea of it as quickly as you did. I expect
you could write a very interesting description of it, and I don't
expect he could._

_Still, I will say that I shall be truly sorry if, after this
letter, you decide not to come to us. I like your company; and I
shall not get tired of it. But to be more frank still, I think
you are one of those charming and sympathetic people who is tough
inside, with a toughness which is based on the determination to
find things amusing and interesting--and that is not the sort of
toughness I can do anything with. People like yourself are
incapable as a rule of suffering, whatever happens to them. It's
a very happy disposition, but it does not grow. You are sensitive
enough, but I don't want sensitiveness, I want men who are not
sensitive, and who yet can suffer at not getting nearer and more
quickly than they can to the purpose ahead of them, whatever that
may be. It is a stiff sort of thing that I want. I can help to
make a stiff nature pliable; I'm not very good at making a
pliable nature stiff. That's the truth._

_So I shall be delighted--more than you think--if you say
"Yes." but in a way more hopeful about you if you say "No."_

_Come with Vincent, if you come; and as soon as you like.--Ever
yours truly,_

C. PAYNE.

"Does he want me to go, or does he not?" I said. "Is he letting me down
with a compliment?"

"Oh no," said Vincent, "it's all right. He only thinks that you are a
butterfly which will flutter by, and he would rather like you to do a
little fluttering down there."

"But I'm not going to go there," I said, "to wear a cap and bells for a
bit, and then to be spun when I have left my golden store, like the radiant
morn; he puts me on my mettle. I _will_ go, and he _shall_ keep
me! I don't want to fool about any more."

"All right!" said Vincent. "It's a bargain, then! Will you be ready to go
the day after to-morrow? There are some things I want to buy, now that I'm
going to school again. But I'm awfully relieved--it's just what I want. I
was getting into a mess with all my work, and becoming a muddled loafer."

"And I an elegant