Ah, Carin, why are you not here? Why can we not slip in bed side by side each night as we used up at Sunset Gap? I have so many things to tell you, and I cannot begin to make them clear merely writing them like this. Though I find I like to write. I have been reading and reading for years and thinking how hard it must be to write, and now, for the first time, I am really trying my hand at it, and I find it about as easy as breathing. Of course, writing to you, who understand me and my ways so well, makes it particularly easy. I do not say that I would dare to write for strangers or that I would like to do it. And yet, I wonder, Carin, if one were to write a book just as if one were talking to a friend, showing all one’s heart and counting on the readers to understand and sympathize, if it would not be a good book. A book has to be human to be good, doesn’t it? And writing that way, frankly, even lovingly, I may say, letting people feel that you who are writing are really a friend, although unknown, would make a book human, wouldn’t it? I suppose there are a great many lonely folk in the world who have not had the good fortune to make friends, or even to find their own home, in any true and deep sense of the word, and that to such, a friendly book is a great boon. It is something to take down off the shelf at night in the quiet hours, and to read over and over again. It helps them to forget their troubles and even themselves, and they go to bed comforted and warmed at the heart, remembering that the old world is a pretty kind and genial place after all. If I could write, it is such a book as that which I would choose to make. And do you know, the last few days as I have been lying here thinking and thinking, I’ve wondered if I might not write a little. It would do such pleasant things to my life. It would be like planting little gardens of flowers all about me. Haven’t we a right to plant flowers if we have a taste for them? Planting flowers and writing, like everything else that one does, is largely a matter of habit, don’t you think so? To-morrow Mother McBirney is going home. Uncle David is going to take her. She is to close up the house, send Jim to school, and betake herself and Father McBirney to Bethal Springs for the winter. Uncle David has written down to engage a cosy little furnished cottage for them. He has given me a check for them. I am very happy, Carin. I told you I was going to make Accident my goddess. I like Accident. Just turning around the corner may bring one face to face with—with something glorious. I feel all the time now as if something delightful and surprising were going to happen. _Lovingly_, _Your Azalea_. * * * * * * * * * “Little Windows,” Oct. 29.