Chapter XIV: A Letter and Its Answer

Miss Sue Lee, Congressional Library, Washington,
D. C., from Page Allison.

Dearest Cousin Sue:

I can hardly believe that July is more than half
over and I have not written you. I have thought
about you a lot, my dear cousin, and often wished
for you. We have had just about the best time
girls ever did have and more things have happened!
I have learned to swim; we have been upset in a
cat boat called the Goop, right out in the middle
of Chesapeake Bay; our chaperone, Miss Cox, has
become engaged and expects to be married in a few
weeks; and last and most exciting of all (at least
most exciting to me), I have had a proposal; I,
little, freckled-nosed, countrified Page Allison!
It was the greatest shock of my life, as I wasn't
expecting anything like that ever to happen to me,
at least not for years and years.

You see, it was this way: We went to a hop last
night, the very first hop of my life, and we
naturally dressed up for it in our best white
muslins, low necks, short sleeves, silk stockings,
tucked-up hair and all, and we looked quite
grown-up. All of us are sixteen, except Mary
Flannagan, who is just fifteen. We went with a
goodly number of escorts: Harvie Price and Shorty
Hawkins, who are staying in the house with us; Mr.
Tucker and Mr. Gordon, who is Miss Cox's lover;
and four boys from a camp near us who have been
very nice to us since we have been at Willoughby.

One of these boys, Stephen White (Wink for short),
is studying medicine at the University. He is very
good looking and has lots of sense. He and I have
had a great many very pleasant times together, but
it never entered my head that he thought of me as
anything but a kid. In fact, I thought he was in
love with a girl in Charlottesville; Mabel Binks,
his cousin, told me he was. I also thought that
Dee was his favourite among all of us girls. I
know Dee likes him a lot. You see, Dee is so
interested in sick kittens and babies and
physiology that she just naturally takes to
medical students. But last night Wink gave me what
might be termed a rush. He broke in dances and
claimed dances and did all kinds of things that
were rather astonishing. He is not a very good
dancer and as Mr. Tucker (I call him Zebedee now)
is a splendid one I did not relish Wink's
constantly taking me away from him nor did Zebedee
seem overjoyed to lose me. I thought all the time
Wink was doing it to tease Mabel Binks, who just
naturally despises me and of course would not like
to see her good looking cousin paying me too much
attention. He asked me to sit out a dance with him
and as he is a much better talker than dancer I
was glad to do it, although I must confess I could
not keep my feet still all the time he was
talking to me. He took me to a nice corner of the
porch looking out over the water and began. I hope
you don't think it is wrong of me to tell you
this, Cousin Sue. You see I would bite out my
tongue before I would tell any of the other girls,
but I feel as though I would simply have to tell
some one or--well, bust! He started this way:

"What do you think of long engagements?" and I
said:

"I don't think at all; but I heard one of Father's
old maid cousins say once when someone was
discussing long engagements, 'Hope deferred maketh
the heart sick.'"

And then Wink went on telling me of his prospects
and his ambitions. He seems to have little
prospects and big ambitions, which after all is
the best thing for a young man, I believe. He
asked me if I thought it was too much to ask a
girl to wait, say, five years. I thought of course
he was talking about the Charlottesville girl, who
turns out to be a myth, and I said that I did not
suppose true love would set any limit on waiting.
He said he was almost twenty and had one more year
at the University and expected to have a year in a
New York hospital, and then his ambition was to
become a first class up-to-date country doctor.

He loves the country and says he has never yet
seen a good country doctor who was not overworked.
I agreed with him there and said that my father
was certainly overworked. I also told him that I
had in a measure suggested him to my father as a
possible assistant. That pleased him so much that
he impulsively seized my hand. I thought of course
he was still thinking of the Charlottesville girl
and wondered if she would be a pleasant addition
to our neighbourhood, when Wink began to pour
forth such an impassioned appeal that I could no
longer think he was talking about the
Charlottesville girl but was actually addressing
me. I felt mighty bad and very foolish. When I
told him he had known me but a little over two
weeks he said that made no difference, that there
was such a thing as "love at first sight."

"But," I said, "you did not love me at first
sight."

"Yes I did, but I did not realize it until tonight
when I saw you for the first time with your hair
tucked up, and dressed in an evening dress."

"Well, when I let it down tomorrow and get back
into a middy you will find out what a mistake you
have made."

"Oh, Page, please don't tease me! It makes no
difference now what you wear or how you do your
hair, I am going to love you forever and forever.
Don't you love me just a little?" And a spirit of
mischief still prompting me, I answered:

"I can't tell until I see you with a moustache."
And then, Cousin Sue, I realized that I was not
being my true self but was doing something that I
had never expected to do in my whole life:
flirting outrageously. So I up and told Wink that
I did not care for him except as a friend (I came
mighty near saying "brother," but it sounded too
bromidic). I said I was nothing but a kid and had
no business thinking about lovers for years to
come. I said a lot of things that sound too silly
to write and he said a lot of things, or rather he
said the same thing over and over.

I never saw such a long dance. I thought the music
would never stop. Wink wanted to hold my hand all
the time he was talking, but I just shook hands
with him and thought that was enough. It seemed to
me to be too sudden to be very serious. Of course
in books people do that way, Romeo and Juliet, for
instance, but in real life my idea of falling in
love is first to know someone very well, well
enough to be able to talk to him without any
restraint at all and then gradually to feel that
that person is the one of all others for you. The
idea of knowing a girl two weeks and then seeing
her with her hair done up like a grown-up and
deciding between dances that life could not be
lived without her! Of course Wink thinks he is in
dead earnest and it hurts just as bad for a while
as though he were, but it won't last much longer
than it did for him to make up his mind. He will
be like a man who has had a nightmare: very trying
while it lasts but not so bad but that he can eat
a good breakfast the next morning and forget all
about it, only wondering what made him have such a
bad dream and what was it all about, anyhow!

Goodness, I was glad to see Zebedee when he came
around the corner of the porch looking for me to
dance a particular one-step that he and I had
evolved together. I believe Zebedee (Mr. Tucker)
knew what had been going on, because Wink was
looking so sullen and I, I don't know how I was
looking, but I was certainly feeling very foolish.
He tucked my arm in his and looked at me rather
sadly just as he had at Dum last winter when Mr.
Reginald Kent, the young artist from New York,
asked her for a lock of her hair. I know Zebedee
hates for any of us to grow up, me as well as the
twins. I wanted awfully to tell him it was all
right but I did not know how to do it without
giving Wink away, so I just said nothing. I did
not see Wink again last night and the boys tell me
he has gone over to Newport News today with Mabel
Binks to call on their relatives.

I have written a terribly long letter and still
have not told you that Cousin Park Garnett is
stopping at the hotel here in Willoughby. She is
the same Cousin Park, only a little more tightly
upholstered, if possible. I wish I could like her
better, but she always makes me feel all mouth and
freckles.

Good-bye, Cousin Sue, and if I should not have
told you all of this nonsense about Wink and me,
please forgive me. Lots of girls would tell other
girls if they got a proposal, but I would never do
that; but you have been so like my mother to me
that somehow I do not feel it is indelicate to
tell you.

With best love,
PAGE.

From Miss Sue Lee, Washington, D. C., to Page
Allison.

My Dearest Little Page:

I was overjoyed to get your very interesting
letter and I hasten to answer it and to tell you
that you must always feel at perfect liberty to
tell me anything and everything that comes up in
your life. I am a little sorry for Wink, but you
were right not to encourage him. Do not be too
sure, however, that he will get over this malady
as quickly as he took it. Shakespeare was a very
wise and true artist and you may be sure that when
he made Romeo fall in love with Juliet as he did
without a moment's warning,--and already in love
with someone else, as Romeo thought he was,--such
a thing can come to pass. We find as much truth in
fiction as in fact, everlasting truths. But then,
I am a sentimental old maid and you must not take
me too seriously.

I want to know your friends, the Tuckers, very
much indeed. I hope to spend August at Bracken and
perhaps I can meet them then. Washington is very
hot and I am quite tired out and will be glad of
the quiet and peace of Bracken as well as the
sane, delightful talks with your dear father. I
hope Cousin Park will not choose the same time to
make her visit. If she makes you feel all mouth
and freckles, she makes me feel all nose and
wrinkles. She told me once that she was confident
my nose was the cause of my spinsterhood. As my
nose is a perfectly good Lee nose, and as
spinsterhood is as much a mark of my family as my
nose, I shouldn't mind her remark, but somehow I
do.

I am sending you a pair of blue silk stockings and
a tie to match, to wear with white duck skirts and
lingerie waists. No doubt you will be so
captivating in this colour that proposals will
come pouring in. Please tell me about them if
they do. Don't grow up yet, little Cousin Page!
There is time enough for lovers and such like, and
sixteen is o'er young for taking things very
seriously. I am glad indeed that you sent poor
Wink about his business and hope he will grow a
moustache and a flowing beard before he addresses
you again.

With much love,
COUSIN SUE.