I should certainly
like her. I like her already. When you spoke in your first letter
of seeing a young girl swinging in a hammock under your chamber
window, I was somehow strangely drawn to her. I cannot account for
it in the least. What you have subsequently written of Miss Daw has
strengthened the impression. You seem to be describing a woman I
have known in some previous state of existence, or dreamed of in
this. Upon my word, if you were to send me her photograph, I
believe I should recognize her at a glance. Her manner, that
listening attitude, her traits of character, as you indicate them,
the light hair and the dark eyes--they are all familiar things to
me. Asked a lot of questions, did she? Curious about me? That is
strange.
You would laugh in your sleeve, you wretched old cynic, if you knew
how I lie awake nights, with my gas turned down to a star, thinking
of The Pines and the house across the road. How cool it must be
down there! I long for the salt smell in the air. I picture the
colonel smoking his cheroot on the piazza. I send you and Miss Daw
off on afternoon rambles along the beach. Sometimes I let you
stroll with her under the elms in the moonlight, for you are great
friends by this time, I take it, and see each other every day. I
know your ways and your manners! Then I fall into a truculent
mood, and would like to destroy somebody. Have you noticed anything
in the shape of a lover hanging around the colonel Lares and
Penates? Does that lieutenant of the horse-marines or that young
Stillwater parson visit the house much? Not that I am pining for
news of them, but any gossip of the kind would be in order.
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