said, "I've the sad, terrible news will be breaking
your heart."

"Have you decided not to marry me?" I asked, facetiously, but I
didn't feel in the least humorous.

"'Tis my lad," he said, "Randal. She's thrown him over, that girl.
Destroyed he is with grief and shame, bound again for the black pit."

I tried to comfort him. I said I was sure the boy was too firmly on
his feet to slip now, but he knew better, or worse, and he said he
dared not leave him for an hour, and then, Sarah, I began to see what
it meant, and it turned me to iron and ice.

"You mean," I said, "you want to postpone our marriage?"

"Never that, Acushla, but--couldn't we be taking him with us? 'Tis
the wild thing to be asking you, but after all, woman dear, we've the
whole of our lives ahead, and for him it means all the world! Say
we'll be taking him!"

Now, Sarah Farraday, I ask you, as a reasonable human being, what you
think of that? _To take a dope fiend with us on our honeymoon!_

I seemed to see the future in one blinding flash--always our own
rights, our own happiness, relentlessly pushed aside. I'm glad I
can't remember all I said, but I shall remember the look on his face
as long as I live. But I was right--I was right. He belongs in a
painted picture, St. Michael, not in a warm, vital, human world.

So, it isn't my wedding morning after all.

J.

_Three P.M._

I'm putting a special delivery stamp on this, Sally dear, so you'll
get it before the other one.

I relented in sackcloth and ashes and shame, of course, and
telephoned to tell him so, but I couldn't get him because he was on
his way here to tell me _he_ would yield, that he wouldn't ask me to
take Randal with us. Then we had another moving scene, reversed this
time, I pleading penitently to take him. M.D. said he had had a good
talk with the poor lad, and he had sworn to brace up alone.

I shall always be glad I yielded, but I know now _just_ how Abraham
felt when he found the ram caught in the bushes! And I'll always be
glad that for once M.D. chose happiness for himself.

Very shakily, but gratefully,

JANE.

_Midnight,
On the Boston Boat._

My dear, do you remember a silly song of our childhood with a refrain
like this--

"I'm not blessed with surplus wealth,
Bump tiddy ump