my pleasure of
mind, and told him what was only half true. (You know they were talking
of truth and lies at the camp the other night, and I was puzzled. Now I
know what it is to tell a half-truth.) But as I spoke, the leaves of
the trees withered and fell, and the birds left their contented harmony
and began screaming in discord. The angel was gone, and I knew that
heaven was destroyed, and I had done it. I woke, grasping my arms so
tightly with either hand that the pressure hurt. I was sobbing for
breath. But I was alive, and my heaven lay yet before me.

Have I done well? Here have I written you page upon page, only to earn
a letter in return, when I long to fill these sheets with hot
protestations, with petitions for your gentle ruth. At first it was
enough to love you. At first? for the instant of recognizing my royal
destiny; but now I would have all. Love me! love me! my heart cries and
cries, for unless you know me for your own, what shall hinder me from
losing you in this whirling progress of the days. You will go away; I
heard them talking about it this morning. What am I to do then, I ask
you? What am I to do? Mateless, solitary, left in the nest I was so
long in building, while you fly south, the sun upon your shining wings.
_What am I to do?_

[Sidenote: _Zoe Montrose to Francis Hume_]

Your last letter pleased me very well, all save its note of melancholy.
Byronism is out of fashion. It isn't vendible, or it won't be in a few
years, mark my words. In the time that is coming, men-children will
rise up in literature and slash and slay and troll out hearty songs,
born in the childhood of the race, and tell us of the love of woman,
and the joy of martial blows. No more splitting of psychological hairs!
The reaction is coming, and I thank the gods who make for us to mar.
Moreover, you were hysterical at the end. Reform it altogether. No
woman of any sense of humor was ever won by tears in the man who should
be fighting for her. Take Tristram of Brittany for your model, not some
laddie who should be in petticoats. Else you will never win fair lady.
I speak generally, for it is understood from the start that this
specific fair lady is not to be won at all. Woo her you may, so you do
it amusingly, robustly, with no whining like a hungry dog. She has
little heart for "crumbling the hounds their messes." Now to business.
I lay my commands upon you. A visitor is coming to camp: a man. While
he is here, I shall have