my thoughts; 107 orphans do that. And I really
am quite comfortably alive whether you are here or not. I have to be
natural. You surely don't want me to pretend more desolation than I
feel. But I do love to see you,--you know that perfectly,--and I am
disappointed when you can't come. I fully appreciate all your charming
qualities, but, my dear boy, I CAN'T be sentimental on paper. I am
always thinking about the hotel chambermaid who reads the letters you
casually leave on your bureau. You needn't expostulate that you carry
them next your heart, for I know perfectly well that you don't.

Forgive me for that last letter if it hurt your feelings. Since I came
to this asylum I am extremely touchy on the subject of drink. You would
be, too, if you had seen what I have seen. Several of my chicks are the
sad result of alcoholic parents, and they are never going to have a fair
chance all their lives. You can't look about a place like this without
"aye keeping up a terrible thinking."

You are right, I am afraid, about its being a woman's trick to make a
great show of forgiving a man, and then never letting him hear the end
of it. Well, Gordon, I positively don't know what the word "forgiving"
means. It can't include "forgetting," for that is a physiological
process, and does not result from an act of the will. We all have a
collection of memories that we would happily lose, but somehow those are
just the ones that insist upon sticking. If "forgiving" means promising
never to speak of a thing again, I can doubtless manage that. But it
isn't always the wisest way to shut an unpleasant memory inside you. It
grows and grows, and runs all through you like a poison.

Oh dear! I really didn't mean to be saying all this. I try to be the
cheerful, carefree (and somewhat light-headed) Sallie you like best; but
I've come in touch with a great deal of REALNESS during this last year,
and I'm afraid I've grown into a very different person from the girl you
fell in love with. I'm no longer a gay young thing playing with life.
I know it pretty thoroughly now, and that means that I can't be always
laughing.

I know this is another beastly uncheerful letter,--as bad as the last,
and maybe worse,--but if you knew what we've just been through! A
boy--sixteen--of unspeakable heredity has nearly poisoned himself with
a disgusting mixture of alcohol and witch hazel. We have been working
three days over him, and are just sure now that he is going