“I received your letter. I must tell you first that I have never before received a letter without showing it to my mother, at least since I was a little girl, when I had lots of letters, with toffee and flowers, from my boy-sweethearts, which I did not show, because my mother would have made me give up the toffee. I do not like writing now without telling her about it, and yet, on the other hand, I cannot bear to leave your note unanswered. So please do not write to me again, not, at least, unless you have something very, _very_ particular to say about anything, for instance, in which I can help you. I am very much troubled by what you say about the person you mentioned. I cannot believe that person guilty of the deliberate cruelty and wickedness you suggest. Won’t you let me speak? It would be better, believe me. I know that I am not a proper person to give advice to anybody; I am supposed to be too silly to be capable of such a thing. But if I were a person of more authority, who would be listened to, I would say: Go to that person and ask that person to tell you about yourself, and _insist_ upon knowing. Then I believe that person will have to give way. “And now please remember that you are not to write to me, because it puts me in a great difficulty when you do. For, on the one hand, I cannot bear not to answer, when you are so lonely; and, on the other hand, I can’t bear to do anything underhand, that I can’t tell my mother about. It makes me feel quite wicked. And yet, if I did tell her, I know she would tell a certain person, or else she would insist upon our going away, and there would be dreadful scenes. “I know this is a dreadfully stupid letter, and I am almost ashamed to send it; if I do, I shall post it under the door. But please, please believe that I am very, very sorry about it all, and that I do hope you will take the advice I should like to give you if I dared. “Yours--” (she debated within herself for a long time how she should end, without being too forward, too formal, too affectionate or too cold)--“sincerely, “CHRIS ABERCARNE.” “I can’t put ‘Christina,’ it’s simply too horrid,” she said to herself, as she looked sideways at the letter; “it’s a dreadfully bad letter, just such a letter as Miss Smithson used to say a lady ought not to write; full of ‘that person,’ and ‘can’t,’ instead of ‘cannot.’ And it gets worse, instead of better, as it goes on. However, I don’t think there are any sentences without heads or tails, and if there are, why, he shouldn’t write to a girl if he expects grammar. I think,” she went on, a little blush rising to her face as the thought came into her mind, “that I may give it just one, to help it on its way.” And, laughing to herself, she pressed the letter to her pretty red lips.