r the first time I discovered the
delight of revealing my thought unhindered by the conventions. Also, I
understood better why the writer of those letters had written them.
Doubtless he had enjoyed doing so and was not impelled thereto simply
by a purely philanthropic wish to help me.

When my letter was finished I sealed it up and locked it away in my
desk with a smile at my middle-aged folly. What, I wondered, would all
my sedate, serious friends, my associates of mission and hospital
committees think if they knew. Well, everybody has, or should have, a
pet nonsense in her life. I did not think mine was any sillier than
some others I knew, and to myself I admitted that it was very sweet. I
knew if those letters ceased to come all savour would go out of my
life.

After that I wrote a reply to every letter I received and kept them
all locked up together. It was delightful. I wrote out all my doings
and perplexities and hopes and plans and wishes--yes, and my dreams.
The secret romance of it all made me look on existence with joyous,
contented eyes.

Gradually a change crept over the letters I received. Without ever
affording the slightest clue to the identity of their writer they grew
more intimate and personal. A subtle, caressing note of tenderness
breathed from them and thrilled my heart curiously. I felt as if I
were being drawn into the writer's life, admitted into the most sacred
recesses of his thoughts and feelings. Yet it was all done so subtly,
so delicately, that I was unconscious of the change until I discovered
it in reading over the older letters and comparing them with the later
ones.

Finally a letter came--my first love letter, and surely never was a
love letter received under stranger circumstances. It began abruptly
as all the letters had begun, plunging into the middle of the writer's
strain of thought without any preface. The first words drove the blood
to my heart and then sent it flying hotly all over my face.

I love you. I must say it at last. Have you not guessed it
before? It has trembled on my pen in every line I have written
to you--yet I have never dared to shape it into words before.
I know not how I dare now. I only know that I must. What a
delight to write it out and know that you will read it.
Tonight the mood is on me to tell it to you recklessly and
lavishly, never pausing to stint or weigh words. Sweetheart, I
love you--love you--love you--dear