letter." She gave it to me.
It was written on very thick gray paper with rough edges, and there was
a margin of two inches at the left. The handwriting was beautiful, only
not very clear, and when I had puzzled over it for a minute she snatched
it back again.

"I'll read it to you," said she.

Well, I thought it was a most beautiful letter. The gentleman said
she had always been the ideal of his life. He owed everything--and by
everything he meant chiefly his worship of beauty--to her. He asked
her to accept his undying devotion, and to believe that, however far
distance and time should part them, he was hers and hers only. He said
he looked back with ineffable contempt upon the days when he had hoped
to build a nest and see her beside him there. Now he had reached the
true empyrean, and he could only ask to know that she, too, was winging
her bright way into regions where he, in another life, might follow and
sing beside her in liquid, throbbing notes to pierce the stars. He
ended by saying that he was not very fit--the opera season had been
a monumental experience this year--and he was taking refuge with an
English brotherhood to lead, for a time, a cloistered life instinct
with beauty and its worship, but that there as everywhere he was hers
eternally. How glad I was of the verbal memory I have been so often
praised for! I knew almost every word of that lovely letter by heart
after the one reading. I shall never forget it.

"Well?" said Aunt Elizabeth. She was looking at me, and again I saw how
long it must have been since she was young. "Well, what do you think of
it?"

I told the truth. "Oh," said I, "I think it's a beautiful letter!"

"You do!" said Aunt Elizabeth. "Does it strike you as being a
love-letter!"

I couldn't answer fast enough. "Why, Aunt Elizabeth," I said, "he tells
you so. He says he loves you eternally. It's beautiful!"

"You fool!" said Aunt Elizabeth. "You pink-cheeked little fool! You
haven't opened the door yet--not any door, not one of them--oh, you
happy, happy fool!" She called through the window (mother was arranging
flowers there for tea): "Ada, you must telephone the Banner. My
engagement is not to be announced." Then she turned to me. "Peggy'" said
she, in a low voice, as if mother was not to hear, "to-morrow you must
drive with me to Whitman."

Something choked me in my throat: either fear of her or dread of what
she meant to make me do. But I looked into her face and answer