y, it was because it seemed the greatest thing in the
world to me, just to talk to you, and be where I could see you smile,
and hear you laugh; you've got a laugh that is like a child's, or an
angel's, if angels laugh. I've heard of their weeping, and if you knew
my whole life, I think you would shed a tear or two over me. But that
is not what I am trying to get at; I want to explain that if I appeared
to brag of being tolerated by you, and made it seem any thing more than
toleration, it was because it was like heaven to me not to have you
give me the grand bounce again. And what I want to ask you now, is just
to let me write to you, every now and then, and when I am tempted to go
wrong, anyways--and a business life is full of temptations--let me put
the case before you, and have you set me right. I won't want but a word
from you, and most part of the time, I shall just want to free my mind
to you on life in general, and won't expect any answer. I feel as if
you had got my soul in your hands, and you could save it, or throw it
away. That is all. I am writing on the train, and I have to use pencil.
I hope you'll excuse the stationery; it's all the porter could get me,
and I'm anxious to have a letter go back to you at once. I know your
mother has written to you, and I want to corroborate everything she
says against me."

The letter covered half-a-dozen telegraph blanks, and filled them full,
so that the diffident suggestion, "My permanent address is with Gates &
Clarkson," had to be written along the side of the first page.

The low cunning, the impudent hypocrisy, the leering pretence of
reverence, the affectation of penitence, the whole fraudulent design,
so flimsy that the writer himself seemed to be mocking at it, was open
to Cornelia, and she read the letter through with distinct relief.
Whatever the fascinations of Mr. Dickerson were when he was personally
at hand, he had none at a distance, and when she ran over the pages a
second time, it was with a laugh, which she felt sure he would have
joined her in, if he had been there. It turned her tragedy into farce
so completely, for the time, that she went through her morning's work
with a pleasure and a peace of mind which she had not felt for many
days. It really seemed such a joke, that she almost yielded to the
temptation of showing passages of the letter to Charmian; and she
forebore only because she would have had to tell more than she cared to
have any one know