the play, but must decline accepting it. My family send their best
respects, in which they are joined by

Yours, truly,

S. L.


The deuce a bit more is there of it. If you can make anything out of it
(or any body else) I'll be hanged. You are to understand, this comes in
a frank, the second I have received from her, with a name I can't make
out, and she won't tell me, though I asked her, where she got franks, as
also whether the lodgings were let, to neither of which a word of
answer. * * * * is the name on the frank: see if you can decypher it by
a Red-book. I suspect her grievously of being an arrant jilt, to say no
more--yet I love her dearly. Do you know I'm going to write to that
sweet rogue presently, having a whole evening to myself in advance of my
work? Now mark, before you set about your exposition of the new
Apocalypse of the new Calypso, the only thing to be endured in the above
letter is the date. It was written the very day after she received
mine. By this she seems willing to lose no time in receiving these
letters "of such sweet breath composed." If I thought so--but I wait
for your reply. After all, what is there in her but a pretty figure,
and that you can't get a word out of her? Hers is the Fabian method of
making love and conquests. What do you suppose she said the night
before I left her?

"H. Could you not come and live with me as a friend?

"S. I don't know: and yet it would be of no use if I did, you would