he could not get a
good one in Botzen; this is a very good one, the shopman told me so, and
is the most expensif of all the presents--so that is all my money, except
two gulden. If Papa shall give me some more, I shall buy for Miss Naylor
a parasol, because it is useful and the handle of hers is 'wobbley' (that
is one of Dr. Edmund's words and I like it).

"Good-bye for this time. Greta sends you her kiss.

"P. S.--Miss Naylor has read all this letter (except about the parasol)
and there are several things she did not want me to put, so I have copied
it without the things, but at the last I have kept that copy myself, so
that is why this is smudgy and several words are not spelt well, but all
the things are here."

Christian read, smiling, but to finish it was like dropping a talisman,
and her face clouded. A sudden draught blew her hair about, and from
within, Mr. Treffry's cough mingled with the soughing of the wind; the
sky was fast blackening. She went indoors, took a pen and began to
write:

"MY FRIEND,--Why haven't you written to me? It is so, long to wait.
Uncle says you are in Italy--it is dreadful not to know for certain. I
feel you would have written if you could; and I can't help thinking of
all the things that may have happened. I am unhappy. Uncle Nic is ill;
he will not confess it, that is his way; but he is very ill. Though
perhaps you will never see this, I must write down all my thoughts.
Sometimes I feel that I am brutal to be always thinking about you,
scheming how to be with you again, when he is lying there so ill. How
good he has always been to me; it is terrible that love should pull one
apart so. Surely love should be beautiful, and peaceful, instead of
filling me with bitter, wicked thoughts. I love you--and I love him; I
feel as if I were torn in two. Why should it be so? Why should the
beginning of one life mean the ending of another, one love the
destruction of another? I don't understand. The same spirit makes me
love you and him, the same sympathy, the same trust--yet it sometimes
seems as if I were a criminal in loving you. You know what he thinks--he
is too honest not to have shown you. He has talked to me; he likes you
in a way, but you are a foreigner--he says-your life is not my life. 'He
is not the man for you!' Those were his words. And now he doesn't talk
to me, but when I am in the room he looks at me--that's worse--a thousand
times; when he talks it rouses me