dy, it is a hard bargain. It is, really. I'm so awfully
lonely. You are the only person I have to care for, and you are so
shadowy. You're just an imaginary man that I've made up--and probably
the real YOU isn't a bit like my imaginary YOU. But you did once, when
I was ill in the infirmary, send me a message, and now, when I am
feeling awfully forgotten, I get out your card and read it over.

I don't think I am telling you at all what I started to say, which was
this:

Although my feelings are still hurt, for it is very humiliating to be
picked up and moved about by an arbitrary, peremptory, unreasonable,
omnipotent, invisible Providence, still, when a man has been as kind
and generous and thoughtful as you have heretofore been towards me, I
suppose he has a right to be an arbitrary, peremptory, unreasonable,
invisible Providence if he chooses, and so--I'll forgive you and be
cheerful again. But I still don't enjoy getting Sallie's letters about
the good times they are having in camp!

However--we will draw a veil over that and begin again.

I've been writing and writing this summer; four short stories finished
and sent to four different magazines. So you see I'm trying to be an
author. I have a workroom fixed in a corner of the attic where Master
Jervie used to have his rainy-day playroom. It's in a cool, breezy
corner with two dormer windows, and shaded by a maple tree with a
family of red squirrels living in a hole.

I'll write a nicer letter in a few days and tell you all the farm news.

We need rain.

Yours as ever,
Judy

10th August

Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs,

SIR: I address you from the second crotch in the willow tree by the
pool in the pasture. There's a frog croaking underneath, a locust
singing overhead and two little 'devil downheads' darting up and down
the trunk. I've been here for an hour; it's a very comfortable crotch,
especially after being upholstered with two sofa cushions. I came up
with a pen and tablet hoping to write an immortal short story, but I've
been having a dreadful time with my heroine--I CAN'T make her behave as
I want her to behave; so I've abandoned her for the moment, and am
writing to you. (Not much relief though, for I can't make you behave
as I want you to, either.)

If you are in that dreadful New York, I wish I could send you