naturally curious parent. But we, who can look over the reader's
shoulder, need not be kept in the dark.

"Dear Olympia" (the letter said), "it was hard to leave
without a last word. All the way here I have been thinking
of our little talk--if that can be called a talk where one
side has lost his senses and the other is trifling or mystifying.
I told you that I loved you. I thrill even yet with
the joy of that. You are so wayward and capricious, so
coy, that I began to fear that I never could get your car long
enough to tell you what I felt you must have long known. You
didn't say that you loved me; but, dear Olympia, neither did
you say that you did not. The rose has fallen on the hem
of your robe. When its fragrance steals into your senses,
you will stoop and put the blossom in your bosom. It is the
war that divides us, you say. It will soon pass. And who
knows what may happen to make you glad that, since there
must be strife, I am one of the enemy rather than a stranger?
I feel that we shall be brought together in danger, when it
may be my happiness to serve you or yours. But, even if I
am not so favored, I shall still ask your love. You know
our Southern ways. Whom I love my mother loves. But
my mother and sister Rosa have loved you long and dearly.
They have known you as long as I have, and when you consent
to come to us you will take no stranger's place in the
heart and home of the family. Remember the motto you
gave me. You are a woman, therefore tender; I am daring,
Heaven knows, in aspiring to such a reward as your love.
But I dare to love you; if you cast that love from you, love
will lose its tenderness, bravery its daring. One of the high