d scientific and inhuman and S C O T C H, but you can't
fool me. My newly trained psychological eye has been upon you for ten
months, and I have applied the Binet test. You are really kind and
sympathetic and wise and forgiving and big, so please be at home the
next time I come to see you, and we will perform a surgical operation
upon Time and amputate five months.

Do you remember the Sunday afternoon we ran away, and what a nice time
we had? It is now the day after that.

SALLIE McBRIDE.

P.S. If I condescend to call upon you again, please condescend to see
me, for I assure you I won't try more than once! Also, I assure you that
I won't drip tears on your counterpane or try to kiss your hand, as I
hear one admiring lady did.

THE JOHN GRIER HOME,

Thursday.

Dear Enemy:

You see, I'm feeling very friendly toward you this moment. When I call
you "MacRae" I don't like you, and when I call you "Enemy" I do.

Sadie Kate delivered your note (as an afterthought). And it's a very
creditable production for a left-handed man; I thought at first glance
it was from Punch.

You may expect me tomorrow at four, and mind you're awake! I'm glad that
you think we're friends. Really, I feel that I've got back something
quite precious which I had carelessly mislaid.

S. McB.

P.S. Java caught cold the night of the fire and he has the toothache. He
sits and holds his cheek like a poor little kiddie.

Thursday, January 29.

Dear Judy:

Those must have been ten terribly incoherent pages I dashed off to you
last week. Did you respect my command to destroy that letter? I should
not care to have it appear in my collected correspondence. I know that
my state of mind is disgraceful, shocking, scandalous, but one really
can't help the way one feels. It is usually considered a pleasant
sensation to be engaged, but, oh, it is nothing compared with the
wonderful untrammeled, joyous, free sensation of being unengaged! I have
had a terribly unstable feeling these last few months, and now at last
I am settled. No one ever looked forward to spinsterhood more thankfully
than I.

Our fire, I have come to believe, was providential. It was sent from
heaven to clear the way for a new John Grier. We are already deep in
plans for cottages. I favor gray stucco, Betsy leans to brick, and
Percy, half-timber. I don't know what our poor doctor would prefer;
olive green with a mansard roof appears to be his taste.

With ten different kitc