Page:Love's trilogy.djvu/159

 'I promise you I will write very often, but I am afraid you must be satisfied with short notes. The country laziness has already taken hold of my brain, so that I have to drive myself to make and spell a correct phrase. The only thing my brain is able to express quickly is that I am very much in love with you, and am longing for the 15th, when I have to pay a visit to town on business.

'We live in a cottage, hardly as tall as we are, but the situation is perfect, just on the outskirts of the wood, and the cottage owns a collection of pictures of heavenly and earthly celebrities, which, together with fresh milk, pigstye, and seaweed perfume, and bedtime at ten o'clock, purifies my soul to a state of open-mouthed childishness. Therefore, without blushing, I finish this letter in the true style of the usual love epistle. With love and a thousand kisses to my beloved darling.—From her ever devoted. A.'

9$th$

T has happened before that I have not seen him for a whole week. Why then does this week's parting seem so bitter?

In an hour and a half I can get to him. If to- day I write that I cannot bear the parting any longer, I know he will come to-morrow.

Yet, it is not the same.

Before, when I walked through the streets, I knew that I might meet him at any moment. I read his name on the theatre posters. I passed