ing. I do not know what to think. Do you mean to say that you are
seriously half in love with a woman whom you have never seen--with
a shadow, a chimera? for what else can Miss Daw to be you? I do not
understand it at all. I understand neither you nor her. You are a
couple of ethereal beings moving in finer air than I can breathe with my
commonplace lungs. Such delicacy of sentiment is something that I admire
without comprehending. I am bewildered. I am of the earth earthy, and I
find myself in the incongruous position of having to do with mere souls,
with natures so finely tempered that I run some risk of shattering them
in my awkwardness. I am as Caliban among the spirits!

Reflecting on your letter, I am not sure that it is wise in me to
continue this correspondence. But no, Jack; I do wrong to doubt the good
sense that forms the basis of your character. You are deeply interested
in Miss Daw; you feel that she is a person whom you may perhaps greatly
admire when you know her: at the same time you bear in mind that the
chances are ten to five that, when you do come to know her, she will
fall far short of your ideal, and you will not care for her in the
least. Look at it in this sensible light, and I will hold back nothing
from you.

Yesterday afternoon my father and myself rode over to Rivermouth with
the Daws. A heavy rain in the morning had cooled the atmosphere and laid
the dust. To Rivermouth is a drive of eight miles, along a winding road
lined all the way with wild barberry bushes. I never saw anything more
brilliant than these bushes, the green of the foliage and the faint
blush of the berries intensified by the rain. The colonel drove, with
my father in front, Miss Daw and I on the back seat. I resolved that for
the first five miles your name should not pass my lips. I was amused
by the artful attempts she made, at the start, to break through my
reticence. Then a silence fell upon her; and then she became suddenly
gay. That keenness which I enjoyed so much when it was exercised on the
lieutenant was not so satisfactory directed against myself. Miss Daw has
great sweetness of disposition, but she can be disagreeable. She is like
the young lady in the rhyme, with the curl on her forehead,

"When she is good,
She is very, very good,
And when she is bad, she is horrid!"

I kept to my resolution, however; but on the return home I relented, and
talked of your mare!