getting so immediate a retort would surely unhinge the well-fitted
panels of his intellect.

We add his letter to the large delta of unanswered mail on our desk,
taking occasion to turn the mass over once or twice and run through it
in a brisk, smiling mood, thinking of all the jolly letters we shall
write some day.

After Bill's letter has lain on the pile for a fortnight or so it has
been gently silted over by about twenty other pleasantly postponed
manuscripts. Coming upon it by chance, we reflect that any specific
problems raised by Bill in that manifesto will by this time have settled
themselves. And his random speculations upon household management and
human destiny will probably have taken a new slant by now, so that to
answer his letter in its own tune will not be congruent with his present
fevers. We had better bide a wee until we really have something of
circumstance to impart.

We wait a week.

By this time a certain sense of shame has begun to invade the privacy of
our brain. We feel that to answer that letter now would be an
indelicacy. Better to pretend that we never got it. By and by Bill will
write again and then we will answer promptly. We put the letter back in
the middle of the heap and think what a fine chap Bill is. But he knows
we love him, so it doesn't really matter whether we write or not.

Another week passes by, and no further communication from Bill. We
wonder whether he does love us as much as we thought. Still--we are too
proud to write and ask.

A few days later a new thought strikes us. Perhaps Bill thinks we have
died and he is annoyed because he wasn't invited to the funeral. Ought
we to wire him? No, because after all we are not dead, and even if he
thinks we are, his subsequent relief at hearing the good news of our
survival will outweigh his bitterness during the interval. One of these
days we will write him a letter that will really express our heart,
filled with all the grindings and gear-work of our mind, rich in
affection and fallacy. But we had better let it ripen and mellow for a
while. Letters, like wines, accumulate bright fumes and bubblings if
kept under cork.

Presently we turn over that pile of letters again. We find in the lees
of the heap two or three that have gone for six months and can safely be
destroyed. Bill is still on our mind, but in a pleasant, dreamy kind of
way. He does not ache or twinge us as he did a month ago. It is fine to
have old friends li