Page:Her Roman Lover (Frothingham, 1911).djvu/244



NNE never knew how she finally induced herself to read Jack’s letter, which had been the innocent cause of such anguish to her.

[it ran], I am giving a friend, an especially struggling young artist, a letter to your aunt. Do induce her to be a little kind to him (I know you are otherwise occupied), because he is a sort of lost mother’s darling who believes that “Art” with a big A has called him. I don’t, but that’s another matter, and being a bad artist does not prevent one from being a homesick boy.

That you are still happy will be always the hope of Rh

In a postscript he made a short but definite allusion to that family circumstance which Anne could not honorably speak of to Gino, so she was debarred from sending him the letter.

The girl made no attempt to hide her misery,