.

Some days are like tin cocoanut graters that everybody uses to grate you
against and this was one for me. For an hour I sat and grated my own
self against Alfred's letter that had come in the morning. I realized
that I would just have to come to some sort of decision about what I was
going to do, for he wrote that he was to sail in a day or two, and ships
do travel so fast these days.

I love him and always have, of that I am sure. He offers me the most
wonderful life in the world and no woman could help being proud to
accept it. I am lonely, more lonely than I was even willing to confess
to Doctor John. I can't go on living this way any longer. Ruth Chester
has made me see that if I want Alfred it will be now or never
and--quick. I know now that she loves him, and she ought to have her
show if I don't want him. The way she idolizes and idealizes him is a
marvel of womanly stupidity.

Some women like to collect men's hearts and hide them away from other
women on cold storage and the helpless things can't help themselves.

I have contempt for that sort of butcher, and I love Ruth!

It's my duty to look the matter in the face before I look in
Alfred's--and _decide_. If not Alfred, what then?

First--no husband. That's out of the question! I'm not strong-minded
enough to crank my own motor-car and study woman's suffrage. I prefer
to suffer at the hands of some cruel man and trust to beguiling him into
doing just as I say. I like men, can't help it, and want one for my own.
I don't count poor Mr. Carter.

Second--if not Alfred, who? Judge Wade is so delightful that I flutter
at the thought, but his mother is Aunt Adeline's own best friend and
they have ideas in common. She is so religious that living with her
would be like having the sacrament for daily bread. Still, living with
him might have adventures. I never saw such eyes! The girl he wanted to
marry died of tuberculosis and he wears a locket with her in it yet. I'd
like to reward him for such faithfulness with a nice husky wife to wear
instead of the locket. But then Alfred's been faithful too! I look at
Ruth Chester and realize how faithful, and my heart melts to him in my
breast--my hips have almost all melted away, too, so I had better keep
the heart cold enough to handle if I want anything left at all for him
to come home to.

In some ways Tom Pollard is the most congenial man I ever knew. You have
to say "don't" to him all the time, but what woman doe