nwhile time flies, and poor Mrs. Hurd is torn by conflicting
desires. All her life, you see, she has subordinated herself to every
whim and opinion of her husband and repressed every natural inclination
and desire. How you would love her! And now she finds to her surprise
that her natural affection for her daughter is in danger of taking her
off her feet. I really believe there have been some painful scenes
between the poor lady and John M.--and there may be some more if Mrs.
Hurd's newly awakened self-assertiveness grows more positive and Mr.
Hurd remains inflexible.

"Through all of this I keep the comparatively noiseless tenor of my
way, and plots, counterplots, and cabals seethe deliciously round me.
I've been having a simply splendid time, and I've discovered that the
actual cause of my enjoyment is the most primitive one imaginable,--I
love a romance, and a real romance ought to end in a wedding, just as
this one is presently going to do. I can hear your comment on this:
'Good heavens! that Maitland girl is exactly like all the rest!' Well,
perhaps I am; cut my acquaintance if you wish--but I have confessed the
truth to you.

"Charlie is much improved, I think. He is as cheerful and as
inconsequent as ever, and his plans for the future seem to me, although
I am not a practical woman of business, more sketchy than well defined.
Sometimes, after listening to him, I have come to the conclusion that
even so attractive a quality as absolute optimism can be overdone, and
that the principle of never crossing a bridge before you come to it can
reasonably be modified by observing before you actually get to the
water whether there is any bridge at all or whether you will have to
swim for the opposite bank. However, one saving grace is the fact that
Charlie seems genuinely in love with Isabel, if I know any of the
signs, and in contemplating the future he even talks of going to work,
if the need should ever arise for that radical departure from his whole
life scheme. Of course, as says, he probably wouldn't do it, but that
he should even think of it he conceives to be a sign of inherent
nobility.

"Were it not for this excitement, I am afraid Boston would be a little
dull. I am reluctant to put such a confession in writing, for some one
has quite truly remarked that to say of any place that it is dull is
too often a confession of one's own dullness, but I am going to be
honest about it. Do you suppose it is bec