Your esteemed favour duly to hand and contents noted. I deeply
regret that my last communication did not meet with your
unmitigated approval, but oh, dear wee Mac, I could not write a
lovey-dovey letter to save my only neck. In my youth, when penny
novels were my sole mental support, I used to see myself pouring
forth screeds of beauteous remarks to an adoring swine 6 1/2 ft.
high x 2 3/4 ft. broad. But now it can't be done. Still, I am
sorry if my letter hurt you. It was never meant to do that, lad.
You must learn to take my chaff and other folks' unseriously.
Honest, if I had been really thinking of you along with other
girls, I would not have mentioned it. I'm not that sort of girl,
and I'm not the sort that gets cold in the head, either, thanking
you all the same for kind enquiries. But I'm by no means
faultless. I get what the novelists call flippant when I am
feeling most solemn. I was a bit down-hearted when I wrote last,
for your letter had said 'Dardanelles.' Now you say 'Flanders,'
which is no better, but I am not going to cry this time. Surely
they won't send you away so soon, dear.

Glad to hear Willie is greatly changed, and I hope he will keep on
changing, though I could never admire a man that ate a whole tin of
salmon in once. I'm sure the two girls were not so dreadfully
plain as you report. Had they got their hair up? Girls don't
usually put out their tongues at young men after their hair is up,
so I presume they were _very_ young. It was like you to ask your
uncle to send Willie the parcel.

Miss Tod is not so brisk just now. The doctor says she must either
drink less tea or become a chronic dyspeptomaniac. She prefers the