g what is happening to you, and whether
that terrible illness ever seizes you, and whether
you are properly looked after when it does.

"Now, just realize, dearest Dam--I said I would
wait twenty years for you, if necessary. I would
and I will, but don't make me do it, darling.
Realize how happy I should be if I could only come
and sew and cook and scrub and work for you.
Can you understand that life is only measurable in
terms of happiness and that _my_ happiness can only
be where _you,_ are? If you weren't liable to these
seizures I could bear to wait, but as it is, I can't.
I beg and beseech you not to make me wait till I
am of age, Dam. There's no telling what may
happen to you and I just can't bear it. _I'm coming_,
if I don't hear from you, and I can easily do something
to compel you to marry me, if I come. You
are _not_ going to bear this alone, darling, so don't
imagine it. We're not going to keep separate
shops after all these years, just because you're ill
with a trouble of some kind that fools can't understand.

"Now write to me at once and put me in a position
to write to you in the ordinary way--or look
out for me! I'm all ready to run away, all sorts
of useful things packed--ready to come and be a
soldier's girl.

"You know that I _do_ what I think I'll do--you
spoke of my 'steel-straight directness and sweet
brave will' in the poem you were making about
me, you poor funny old boy, when you vanished,
and which I found in your room when I went there
to cry, (Oh, _how_ I cried when I found your odds
and ends of verse about me there--I really did think
my heart was 'broken' in actual fact.) Don't
make me suffer any more, darling. I'm sure your
Colonel will be sweet about it and give us a nice
little house all to ourselves, now he has seen what
a splendid soldier you are. If you stick to your
folly about 'disgrace' I need not tell him our names
and Grumper couldn't take me away from you, even
if he ever found out where we were.

"I could go on writing all night, darling, but I'll
only just say again _I am going to marry you and
take care of you, Dam, in the army or out of it._

"Your fiancee and friend,

"LUCILLE GAVESTONE."

Dam groaned aloud.

"Four o' rum 'ot, is wot _you_ want, mate, for that," said the
industrious self-improver at the shelf-table. "Got a chill on yer
stummick on sentry-go in the f