Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/194

 Alice suddenly clung to him very tightly and closely and changed it into a different kind of a kiss, and then just as suddenly she pushed him away from her and turned and fled.

Edward passed through the little gate and closed it behind him. His hat was still in his hand. He stood and looked at the gate and for the hundredth time read the words on it:

"They say. What say they? Let them say!"

Some of Edward's remaining hours were devoted to the composition of the following letter:

Dearest Mother:

John is going to take me to France in his ship, and I am going to study hard to be an artist. I can earn forty dollars a month right now by drawing pictures and that will be enough for me to live on. I know you will be angry and disappointed, and so I have to write this letter and leave it so that you'll get it when I am gone. If I saw you angry and disappointed I suppose I wouldn't go. But you ought not to want me to be a minister when I don't want to be one, and don't believe half the things they have to say, and when I love to draw and paint, and can't see any wrong in it.

I hope you will write and say you forgive me.