own, and how impressively
dignified he can be on occasion. And polite--
My! What a polish the Navy can give! He was so
polite that I was awestruck at first, and it
was two whole days before I felt familiar
enough to dare to refer to the time that he
dragged me down the hay-mow by my hair because
I wouldn't come any other way.

"It has been a wonderful week; yet, isn't it
queer, as I look back on it, there is nothing
at all in it really worth putting into a
letter. It is just that after the first
strangeness wore off, we seemed to slip back
into the dear old good times of the Wigwam
days. You know better than any one else in the
world what they were, for you shared them with
us so often. You know how we have always
enjoyed each other and what entertainment we
found in our own conversation and jokes and
disputes, so you'll understand exactly what
that week was to us, when I say that it was a
slice out of the old days.

"It was better in some ways, however. The
future is not such a distressingly unknown
quantity as it was then. We don't have to say,
'Let X (a very slim X at that) equal Jack's
chances, and minus Y equal Joyce's.' If we
could only determine the value of the chances
of Mary, we'd soon know the 'length of the
whole fish.' 'Member how you moiled and toiled
over that old fish problem in Ray's Algebra, to
help me to understand it?

"Well, I am the puzzling element in the Ware
family's equation. It's our problem to find the
extent of my resources. I was dreadfully
discouraged before Christmas, when every
application I sent out was turned down. It
seemed to me that if I had one more
disappointment I couldn't possibly bear it. But
Joyce has almost persuaded me to give up the
quest for awhile, at least until spring. I am a
year younger than she was when she went away
from home, and she thinks that I owe it to
mamma to stay with her till I am out of my
teens. Mamma hasn't been very well lately.
Sometimes I think I could have a very pleasant
winter here after all, if I'd just make up my
mind to settle down and forget my ambitions.