feet have been set upon the road toward Socialism. Don't start,
Wally--that's the truth. Perhaps I'm not much of a Socialist yet,
because I don't know much about it. But I am learning, and shall
learn. My teacher is the best one in the world, I'm sure; and added
to this, all my natural energy and innate radicalism have flamed
into activity with this new thought. So, you see, the past is even
more effectively buried than ever. How could anything ever be
possible, now, between you and me?

Cease to think of me, Wally. I am gone out of your life, for all
time, as out of that whole circle of false, insincere, wicked and
parasitic existence that we call "society." That other world, where
you still are, shall see me no more. I have found a better and a
nobler kind of life; and to this, and to all it implies, I mean to
be forever faithful. I beg you, never try to find me or to answer
this.

Good-bye, then, forever.

Catherine.

After having read this over and sealed it, she wrote still another:

Dear Father:

It is hard to write these words to you. I owe you a debt of
gratitude and love, in many ways; yet, after all, your will and
mine conflict. You have tried to force me to a union abhorrent and
impossible to me. My only course is this--independence to think,
and act, and live as I, no longer a child but a grown woman, now
see fit.

I shall never return to you, father. Life means one thing to you,
another to me. You cannot change; I would not, now, for all the
world. I must go my way, thinking my own thoughts, doing my own
work, living up to my own ideals, whatever these may be. Your money
cannot lure me back to you, back to that old, false, sheltered,
horrible life of ease and idleness and veiled robbery! The skill
you have given me as a musician will open out a way for me to earn
my own living and be free. For this I thank you, and for much else,
even as I say good-bye to you for all time.

I have written Wally. He will tell you more about me, and about
the change in my views and ambitions, which has taken place. Do not
think harshly of me, father, and I will try to forgive you for the
burden I now know you have laid upon the aching shoulders of this
sad, old world.

And now, good-bye. Though you have lost a daughter, yo