Let me thank you and then thank you again for your beautiful Christmas gifts. A piano of my own, and a music cabinet and folios and folios of music! It was a royal gift and I do not see just how ordinary thanks are going to express my gratitude. All I can say is that it shall be the comfort of my lonely hours, and the joy of my bright ones, and that I promise now that never shall I sit down to this exquisite instrument without thinking of the two who gave it to me, and being thankful that my life met theirs. That my life and theirs could not, for reasons, run along in the same channel, makes the joy of the meeting no less. I look at this wonderful gift and find myself not quite believing that it is really mine. This morning I could hardly wait to dress to run into Carin’s studio to see if it really was there. Having no place of my own, I have had it put in her lovely room for the time being. I have many things to tell you, and I am going to try to tell them with proper dignity as becomes your niece. I know I write dreadful nonsense at times, and I know, too, that I am too impulsive and enthusiastic. I remember that dear Father McBirney warned me against those faults in my character years ago, when I first came to him. I am afraid I have not improved very much, but at least I am aware that he was right, and that I ought to be a more sober and calm person than I am. So, quite calmly and soberly, I am happier than I ever thought anybody could be. I have promised Keefe O’Connor to marry him. By Spring I shall have done it—and you two shall be here beside me, to deliver me with all possible conventionality into his hands. There! Did I not tell that soberly enough? And now to go back! I did not write to Keefe nor he to me. We had promised you that we would not, and we kept our word. I did not even let him know that I was here at Lee, or that I had renounced all of my right to my grandmother’s splendid legacy in order to be free to weave my own silver web. No, I just worked and kept still. But I confess that I knew that Annie Laurie had written to Keefe’s sister, Mrs. Rowantree, all about it, and that I was morally sure she would write to Keefe. But that, as you will plainly see, was something over which I had no control. Not, I will confess, that I tried to have. Meantime, I tried to be content, and I was, really, but it was a contentment made up largely of expectation. You see how frank I am with you. Do you mind? It is Azalea’s way. You don’t want her to try to be any other way than is natural to her, do you? Yes, I had a beautiful, deep-down, reassuring sense of expectation. I felt as if Happiness was journeying toward me. “Maybe,” I often said to myself, “she will be a long while coming, but she is on the way. By putting my ear to the ground, I am sure I can hear her footsteps.”