ong ago, when you first wrote me
about the paper, and I wrote you that, while I was glad for
your sake, I was not enthusiastic over the undertaking? That
was my real self, True, and was from the heart--the same
heart that is more enthusiastic now over the failure of it
all than it ever was over the beginning. If I was dazzled
for a time by the fair colors in the sky,--if I seized your
hand, and with you and Barry and Perny and Van and the
Colonel went racing down the wet meadows for the pot of
gold,--it does not mean that I am any the less glad to wake
up now and find that life is something better than all that;
that true life lies in doing conscientiously whatever we can
do best; that such dreams only serve to make our best work
better, and that still better than all of these is youth and
love--our youth, True, and our love for each other.

"No, True; I am not going to take back my promise. What do
you suppose I care for the few dollars you have lost? You
are no less good and noble--no less capable than before; and
as for the times, they will change--they always do. It
almost hurts me to realize that you could think I would ever
let you send me off even for what you considered my own
good. And I will not go, you see. You can't send me
away--unless, indeed, you do not want me any more, and then,
of course, you will say so, and I will go. Forgive me, True;
I do not mean that; but I must punish you the least bit
because--because I am a woman, I suppose.

"And now, True, about this draft for a thousand dollars
which I am sending back to you. It was right, of course, for
you to hold it as you did when you felt that it could do no
good, and it is better to have it now, when it will. I want
you to have it cashed at once, and let Van and Perny have
just whatever they need of it to tide them over, and I want
you to help the Colonel, too, if you can find him. Then you
are to take the rest of it, and, after using whatever you
need for yourself, go out and find the smallest and cheapest
little apartment in New York that we can live in. Furnish it
with the fewest things you can buy, and if there is any
money left, we will take a wedding trip on it just as far as
it will take us. Then we will come back to our little
apartment, you will g