pose I am reely
home-sick for you. I think it is because you and I are
seperated that I am sorry. The girls hear are not
always kind; they say that I look as though I had been
crying, and then of course I do cry when they say that.
But if my eyes are red, I don't care. I want you badly
and I'm writting to tell you that. Don't forget to feed
my rabbits.

Your loving little friend,
J. M.

The second was marked in the same way, but in a manlier hand, "_Her
last letter to me_."

DEAREST ERIC.

I am so sorry that I am the cause of all this trouble,
and that I cannot love you in the way that you and your
father so much desire. I would do anything to make you
happy save that--play the coward, and say that I love
you as a woman should whom you were going to marry,
when I do not. I have always been used to think of you
as a brother, which is natural, seeing that from our
earliest childhood we have grown up together. I thought
that you would be content with that; no other kind of
affection for you has ever entered into my heart or
head.

Your father was very angry with me last night after you
went out. He said that I, by my conduct, had led you on
to _expect_; believe me, I never meant to do that. It
never occurred to me that there was any need to be
careful in your presence. The truth is, I have always
been an interloper in your home; you will remember how,
long years since, when first I went to boarding-school,
I told you that . . . (four lines were here
undecipherable, being faded and rubbed out). When I
look back, I see that in all my life you have been my
only friend--which makes me the more unhappy that this
has happened. Mind, I don't mean to accuse your family
of unkindness; I only say that I, perhaps naturally,
was never one of them. If I thought that you would be
willing, knowing how I feel toward you, to make me your
wife, for the sake of your peace I might consent even
to that. But you are not such a man. (Three lines were
here obliterated.) Let there be no bitterness between
us by reason of harsh words which others have spoken;
what has happened must make a difference, but I want to
remain still your friend. This recent occurrence seems
to