rp
and cut, as objects do in the clear air of the South. Ah me, the South!
Miss Du Prel has spent much of her life there, and my inborn smouldering
passion for it, is set flaming by her descriptions! You remember that
brief little fortnight that we spent with mother and father in Italy? I
seem now to be again under the spell of the languorous airs, the
cloudless blue, the white palaces, the grey olive groves, and the art,
the art! Oh, Algitha, I must go to the South soon, soon, or I shall die
of home sickness! Miss Du Prel says that this is only one side of me
breaking out: that I am northern at heart. I think it is true, but
meanwhile the thought of the South possesses me. I confess I think
mother had some cause to be alarmed when she saw Miss Du Prel, if she
wants to keep us in a chastened mood, at home. It seems as if all of me
were in high carnival. Life is raised to a higher power. I feel nearly
omnipotent. Epics and operas are child's play to me! It is true I have
produced comparatively few; but, oh, those that are to come! I feel fit
for anything, from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter. I think of the two, I
rather lean to the manslaughter. Oh, I don't mean it in the facetious
sense! that would be a terrible downfall from my present altitudes. To
such devices the usual wretched girl, who has never drawn rebellious
breath, or listened to the discourses of Valeria Du Prel, has to turn
for a living, or to keep _ennui_ at bay. But _I_, no, the inimical
sex may possess their souls in peace, as far as I am concerned. They might
retort that they never _had_ felt nervous, but a letter has the same
advantage as the pulpit: the adversary can never get up and contradict.

"That ridiculous adversary, Harold Wilkins, is staying again at
Drumgarren, and I hear from Mrs. Gordon that he thinks it very strange
that I should see so much of so extraordinary a person as Miss Du Prel!
Opinions differ of course; _I_ think it very strange that the Gordons
should see so much of so ordinary a person as Mr. Wilkins. Everybody
makes much of him here, and, alas! all the girls run after him, and even
fall in love with him; why, I can't conceive. For if driven by dire
compulsion of fate, to bend one's thoughts upon _some_ prosaic example
of that prosaic sex, why not choose one of the many far more attractive
candidates available--the Gordons, the McKenzies, and so forth? When I
go to tennis parties with mother--they are still playing upon the
as