just go look
at the calendar to see if another day hasn't gone by yet. When this
morning I saw it was the 14th and realized there wasn't but one more
day to wait, I went to the window and did open my arms, and I sent a
message into the air. And then, because I felt so sorry for Miss
Araminta Armstrong, who has nothing to wait for but older age, and for
Miss Bettie Simcoe, who has long since stopped hoping, I went
down-stairs and asked them if they wouldn't like to motor to Glade
Springs, and they said they would, and we went. Also Mr. Willie
Prince. I didn't want to ask him, but I couldn't leave him out, and of
course he wanted to go. The going made the day pass a little quicker,
but it has been a long day! Awful long!

For the last week I have been going around to almost every house in
town to say good-by. I don't know the exact day I will leave, as that
will depend on when Mother says I must be home; but I didn't want to go
away and not say good-by to everybody and tell them what a good time I
have had, and I started telling very soon after I got Billy's message
saying he was coming. I have thanked everybody for their niceness and
kindness to me, and told every one I hope to come back next summer, and
sometimes we have had little weeps, for they put their arms around me
and held me so tight I could hardly breathe. And I know now there is
nothing as good as friendliness, and loving-kindness is more to be
desired than all things else on earth, and I am going to try to make it
grow wherever I live. I will have a garden of it--have it in my heart.

I am afraid I will always have some practical things in my heart, too,
for of late I've been thinking about all that money Billy had to spend
in cabling me from Europe. When Billy wants to do a thing he never
lets obstacles stand in his way, and he would have sent that cable if
he'd had to borrow the money from the Bank of England at an awful rate
of interest. What he did do I guess was to get it from his mother.
She would take her head off and her heart out and hand both over if he
wanted them, and it isn't her fault that William, as she calls him,
isn't a ruined person.

I know she hated him to leave ahead of time, which he had to do to get
here on the 15th, the rest not sailing, Jess says, until the 20th; but
that's William again. He doesn't waste time when he has anything to
attend to, and I know exactly what he said to his mother. He will make
every arrang