but I wouldn't speak of
it. I don't know how I thought it would end. Funny, I can't remember how
everything looked so short a time ago as yesterday, but I know I was
eaten up with mean thoughts. I went to bed last night thinking to
myself, 'Well, Nell Goodwin, if you think I'm going to stand much more
of this, you're mistaken. There'll be some plain talk before long.' And
I fell asleep. First thing I knew I was awake, looking to see who'd come
into my room. And there was Nell in her night-dress, holding her hand
round the candle so it wouldn't shine in my eyes. I simply can't tell
you what it was like,--the candle lighting nothing but her made her seem
like a vision in the middle of a glory. Nobody can know how fond I am of
Nell, what friends we've been since little bits of girls. All I could
think of was that she'd come to make up with me, she couldn't wait
another minute. It would have been just like her. And while I waited for
her to speak first, I thought with my heart just melting what a lovely
big thing she is, with that sort of fair look to her neck, and those
warm cheeks, and something so kind about her from head to foot. She put
down the candle and, instead of going into explanations, bent over and
gave me a good hug. And I said, hugging back: 'You better had, you
horrid thing! You better had!' Then she sat down on the bed. 'Hat,' she
said, 'I was going to do a mean thing, but I'm not going to do it. I was
going to slip away without a word, but I'm going to tell you the whole
story. I'm going to marry Gerald,' she said.

"Then she went on to tell me, and what do you think, I didn't say one
word in objection, not one! Because I could see she was dead in love,
and what was the use except to spoil her happiness, and I didn't want
to. She told me how they'd decided it would be just as well not to wait,
but take a short cut. If they stayed in Florence, she said, she'd feel
they must have a big wedding and ask all their friends, and then she
should have to have a trousseau; it would all take lots of time, and
Gerald would so hate the fuss and the chatter. So they'd made up their
minds to go off to Leghorn without a word to anybody,--whose business is
it anyhow but their own?--and be married just as soon as it could be
done, where they wouldn't get so much as the echo of any remarks on
their haste or the way they preferred to do. She'll be staying with Mrs.
Johns till the ceremony. She said she should write your mothe