k this is just the place for the
carrying out of my plans. The average young man is always ready to fall
in love while on his vacation--it makes time pass so pleasantly; and as
I read somewhere that man, as a general rule, proposes fourteen times
during his life, I may as well, in the interests of literature, be the
recipient of some of these offers. I have hit on what I think is a
marvellous idea. I shall arrange the offers with some regard to the
scenery, just as I suppose a stage-manager does. One shall propose by
the river--there are lovely shady walks on both sides; another, up in
the mountains; another, in the moonlight on the lake, in one of the
pretty foreign-looking rowing boats they have here, with striped
awnings. I don't believe any novelist has ever thought of such a thing.
Then I can write down a vivid description of the scenery in conjunction
with the language the young man uses. If my book is not a success, it
will be because there are no discriminating critics in England.

"First proposal--This came on rather unexpectedly. His name is Samuel
Caldwell, and he is a curate here for his health. He is not in the
least in love with me, but he thinks he is, and so, I suppose, it comes
to the same thing. He began by saying that I was the only one who ever
understood his real aspirations, and that if I would join my lot with
his he was sure we should not only bring happiness to ourselves, but to
others as well. I told him gently that my own highest aspiration was to
write a successful novel, and this horrified him, for he thinks novels
are wicked. He has gone to Grindelwald, where he thinks the air is more
suitable for his lungs. I hardly count this as a proposal, and it took
me so much by surprise that it was half over before I realised it was
actually an offer of his heart and hand. Besides, it took place in the
hotel garden, of all unlikely spots, where we were in constant danger
of interruption.

"Second proposal--Richard King is a very nice fellow, and was
tremendously in earnest. He says his life is blighted, but he will soon
come to a different opinion at Interlaken, where Margaret Dunn writes
me it is very gay, and where Richard has gone. Last evening we strolled
down by the lake, and he suggested that we should go out on the water.
He engaged a boat with two women to row, one sitting at the stern, and
the other standing at the prow, working great oars that looked like
cricket-bats. The women did not un