From Richmond she wrote half rejoicings, half lamentations over the long separation she must endure from him and from all else that had hitherto constituted her life. Arthur observed that while she mentioned as a troublesome thing the necessity of having still another gown made before leaving for the North, she told him nothing whatever about the gown itself. “Gowns,” he reflected, “are merely necessary adjuncts of life to Dorothy--as yet. She’ll think of them differently after a while.” From Washington she wrote delightedly of things seen, for although the glory of the national capital had not come upon it in 1860, there was even then abundant interest there for a country damsel. From Baltimore she wrote: “I’ve been wicked, and I like it. Edmonia took me to Kunkel and Moxley’s Front Street Theatre last night to hear an opera, and I haven’t yet wakened from the delicious dream. I think I never shall. I think I never want to. Yet I am very sorry that I went, for I shall want to go again and again and again, and you know that I mustn’t listen to such music as that. It will make me bad, and really and truly I’d rather die than be bad. I don’t understand it at all. Why is it wrong for me to hear great music when it isn’t wrong for Edmonia? And Edmonia has heard the greatest music there is, in New York and Paris and Vienna and Naples, and it hasn’t hurt her in the least. I wish you would tell me why I am so different, won’t you, Cousin Arthur?” From New York she wrote of music again and many times, for she had accepted Arthur’s assurance that there was no harm but only good for her in listening to music; and in obedience to his injunction she went twice each week to the opera, where Edmonia’s friends, whose guest she was, had a box of their own. Presently came from her a pleading letter, asking if she might not herself learn to play a little upon the violin, and availing herself of Arthur’s more than ready permission, she toiled ceaselessly at the instrument until after a month or so Edmonia reported that the girl’s music master was raving about the extraordinary gifts she was manifesting. “I am a trifle worried about it, Arthur,” Edmonia added. “Perhaps her father was right to forbid all this. Music is not merely a delight to her--it is a passion, an intoxication, almost a madness. She is very fond of dancing too, but I think dancing is to her little more than a physical participation in the music. “And she mightily enjoys society. Still more does society enjoy her. Her simplicity, her directness and her perfect truthfulness, are qualities not very common, you know, in society, in New York or anywhere else. People are delighted with her, and, without knowing it, she is the reigning attraction in every drawing room. Ah me! She will have to know it presently, for I foresee that ‘the young Virginia belle’ as they all call her, will have many suitors for her hand before we sail--two weeks hence.