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Rh well, so I came right on. I really think it's better now that she and Billy and the babies should be by themselves. They have a very good servant, and a nice motherly woman for a nurse. But this is a digression. Jack's family dote on Nannie, and they all want her to go and live with them, but she says she couldn't bear it just yet, and so she has asked me to be her companion for a year, until she feels able to decide on her future.

Dr. Ellis, an awfully nice young surgeon, and a college class mate of Jack's, has been just as kind as he could be to Nannie. He says she mustn't stay North this winter, but we haven't yet decided where we are going; perhaps to Florida, and perhaps abroad. Wecame down here a week ago, and it is perfectly enchanting, but we are going away to-morrow on account of the horridest thing that happened this afternoon. Now, Lucie, before you read another line you must promise not to breathe a word of this to Arthur. Well, this afternoon Nannie and I walked down to the West Manchester rocks. We sat with our backs against a nice ledge and looked off over the quiet sea and talked for hours. When we got up to go I had an experience before which Robinson Crusoe's footprint on the sand sinks into nothingness. Right on the other side of the ledge against which we had been leaning I saw, not a footprint, but a foot. Two feet, in fact, and attached to them two legs. All, evidently, the property of a man. I felt as if every drop of blood in my body flew into my face, but I never said a word to Nannie until we got back to the road. Then she looked around, very carefully, of course, and there was that disgusting creature looking over the ledge at us. Did you ever know anything so horrid? If I'd only his legs to judge by—that was all of him I saw, because the rest of him was hidden by a rock—I should have thought him a gentleman, for he wore fine russet shoes and blue trousers. I never want to see that combination again as long as I live. But no gentleman could have done so rude a thing as to listen to a long conversation like ours. I dare say you will think this is funny, but I'm sure you won't laugh when you hear the rest of the story.

What made it so perfectly dreadful was that Lennox has proposed to me again—for the sixth time, my dear,—and I was telling Nannie all about it. Of course, Lennox Vandewater's name is