I
wonder, Ned, you don't fall in love with Miss Daw. I am ripe to do
it myself. Speaking of photographs, couldn't you manage to slip
one of her cartes-de-visite from her album--she must have an album,
you know--and send it to me? I will return it before it could be
missed. That's a good fellow! Did the mare arrive safe and sound?
It will be a capital animal this autumn for Central Park.
Oh--my leg? I forgot about my leg. It's better.
VII.
EDWARD DELANEY TO JOHN FLEMMIMG.
August 20, 1872.
You are correct in your surmises. I am on the most friendly terms
with our neighbors. The colonel and my father smoke their afternoon
cigar together in our sitting-room or on the piazza opposite, and I
pass an hour or two of the day or the evening with the daughter. I
am more and more struck by the beauty, modesty, and intelligence of
Miss Daw.
You asked me why I do not fall in love with her. I will be frank,
Jack; I have thought of that. She is young, rich, accomplished,
uniting in herself more attractions, mental and personal, than I
can recall in any girl of my acquaintance; but she lacks the
something that would be necessary to inspire in me that kind of
interest. Possessing this unknown quality, a woman neither
beautiful nor wealthy nor very young could bring me to her feet.
But not Miss Daw. If we were shipwrecked together on an uninhabited
island--let me suggest a tropical island, for it costs no more to
be picturesque--I would build her a bamboo hut, I would fetch her
bread-fruit and cocoanuts, I would fry yams for her, I would lure
the ingenuous turtle and make her nourishing soups, but I wouldn't
make love to her--not under eighteen months.
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