her to me.

She is adorable. For the life of me I can't understand how a girl, bred
in this wilderness, could have such a fine soul and personality--not to
speak of her intellect, which daily startles me more. But, of course,
she is of cultured stock--she _must_ be--and I have always believed that
the forces of heredity are paramount to those of environment. Do I sound
like a school-mar'm? Well, that is what I am.

It may surprise you to learn, as much as it does me to realize, that I
have turned back to schooldays with an enthusiasm which I never felt
when I was going through them, and that I spend more time as a teacher
than as a nurse. Smiles simply _absorbs_ education--I never knew
anything like it--and I am as confident as she that her dream of going
through the "C. H." and becoming a trained nurse, will come to pass. And
won't she make a wonderful one? Be warned that when she _does_ go north
I intend to dispute with you the right to regard her as a protege.

I couldn't love her as I do, already, if she were not so completely
human, and it amuses me immensely the way she wheedles the natives and
keeps them in good humor by using that comical mountain lingo--although
she can speak as grammatically as any one, when she wants to. She just
smiles at one of them, and says, "Now haint thet jest _toe_ sweet of
ye," and they fall down and worship.

Don't be surprised if you hear me say some day, "Wall, doctor, thet air
shor' er powerful preety operation, an' I air plumb obleeged ter ye fer
thet yo' let me holp ye with hit." I'm catching it, too.

I hope that you will forgive the liberties which I have taken in writing
like this, but I had to do it.

Sincerely yours,
Gertrude Merriman.

P.S. You were right in your conjecture. Since you would not accept the
whole, or any part of Smiles' precious savings--and your refusal nearly
broke her heart until I made her understand that physicians never
charged _members of their family_--she wanted me to take it.

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THE SECOND

Webb's Gap,
Jan. 22, 1914

Dearest Doctor Mac,

My heart is broken. Dear granddaddy died last night. Of course I know
that it had to be, a