bonnets are just the
awfulest things you ever did see. Write soon.

Rachel crumpled the letter in her hand, with a quick, angry gesture,
as if crushing some hateful, despicable thing, and her clear hazel eyes
blazed.

"He is evidently a hopeless coward," she said to herself, "when all that
has passed can not spur him into an exhibition of proper spirit. If he
had the love for me he professed it could not help stimulating him to
some show of manliness. I will fling him out of my heart and my world as
I would fling a rotten apple out of a basket."

Then a sadder and gentler light shone in her face.

"Perhaps I am myself to blame a little. I may not be a good source of
inspiration to acts of heroism. Other girls may have ways of stimulating
their loves to high deeds that I know not of. Possibly I applied the
lash too severely, and instead of rousing him up I killed all the hope
in his heart, and made him indifferent to his future. Possibly, too,
this story may not be true. The feeling in Sardis against him is
strong, and they are hardly willing to do him justice. No doubt they
misrepresent him in this, as they are apt to do in everything."

Her face hardened again.

"But it's of no use seeking excuses for him. My lover--my husband--must
be a man who can hold his own with other men, in whatever relation
of life the struggle may be. The man into whose hands I entrust the
happiness of my life must have his qualities so clear and distinct that
there never will be any question about them. He must not need continual
explanation and defense, for then outraged pride would strangle love
with a ruthless hand. No, I must never have reason to believe that my
choice is inferior to other men in anything."

But notwithstanding this, she smoothed out the crumpled letter tenderly
upon her knee, and read it over again, in the vain hope of finding that
the words had less harshness than she had at first found in them.

"No," she said after a weary study of the lines, "it's surely worse
than mother states it. She is so kind and gentle that she never fails to
mitigate the harshness of anything that she hears about others, and she
has told me this as mildly as the case will admit. I must give him up
forever."

But though she made this resolution with a firm settling of the lines
around her mouth that spoke strongly of its probable fulfilment, the
arrival of the decision was the signal for the assault of a thousand
tender memories an