Page:The Blind Bow-Boy (IA blindbowboy00vanv).pdf/205

 ulations. To be blunt, I feel that you are making a mistake. You should never have gone to your father. Had it been in my power, I should have prevented it. He is wrecking your life with his ego and his selfishness. He broke your mother's will, and he will break yours. If I had stayed with him in business, he would have broken mine. I have wept hot tears since I received your telegram, as I understand only too well what all this means. Poor ignorant boy, you have walked straight into the trap set for you. When you are through with this marriage, come back to me. Your father will be enraged that he has lost you, but I will be glad that I have found you.

Miss Perkins is here and sends her love to you. Persia has not been very well. You will remember that she always suffers from hay fever at this time of year. I cut my thumb a few days ago, paring peaches to preserve, and it still bothers me considerably.

I remain, with love, your.

Harold could explain this letter satisfactorily to himself on no other ground save the ground of jealousy. She is enraged because I am married, he thought, and she is blaming my father for something with which he had nothing whatever to do, to which certainly, in the beginning, he was opposed, for did he not send me to Paul and to a life which is the farthest removed from the life that I wish to live? Now that I have married Alice, he has accepted the situation with more grace than could have been expected from him. He said, Do anything you please, and apparently he meant it. How much