out me in the
silent little house. So she put him in my lap. He settled himself down,
went to sleep, and showed no inclination to leave me.

At the end of two hours he owned me--the very first cat I ever knew,
except by sight.

So you may dismiss that idea which torments you--I am no longer
alone.

I am going to send this letter at once to be dropped in the box in front
of the post-office, where I am very much afraid it may find that of last
week, for we have had no letters yet nor have I seen or heard
anything of the promised automobile postale. However, once a
stamped letter is out of my hand, I always feel at least as if it had
started, though in all probability this may rest indefinitely in that
box in the "deserted village."

II

September 25, 1914

IT is over a week since I wrote you. But I have really been very busy,
and not had a moment.

To begin with, the very day after I wrote to you, Amelie came down
with one of her sick headaches, and she has the most complete sort I
ever met.

She crawled upstairs that morning to open my blinds. I gave one look
at her, and ordered her back to bed. If there is anything that can
make one look worse than a first-class bilious attack I have never met
it. One can walk round and do things when one is suffering all sorts of
pain, or when one is trembling in every nerve, or when one is dying of
consumption, but I defy anyone to be useful when one has an active
sick headache.

Amelie protested, of course; "the work must be done." I did not see
why it had to be. She argued that I was the mistress, "had a right to
be attended to--had a right to expect it." I did not see that either.
I told her that her logic was false. She clinched it, as she thought,
by declaring that I looked as if I needed to be taken care of.

I was indignant. I demanded the handglass, gave one look at myself,
and I was inclined to let it slide off the bed to the floor, a la Camille,
only Amelie would not have seen the joke. I did look old and seedy.
But what of that? Of course Amelie does not know yet that I am like
the "Deacon's One Hoss Shay"--I may look dilapidated, but so long
as I do not absolutely drop apart, I can go.

So I told Amelie that if I were the mistress, I had a right to be obeyed,
and that there were times when there was no question of mistress
and maid, that this was one of those times, that she had been a
trump and a brick, and other nice things, and that the one thing