“So I should just compel Edmonia to take the first ship for New York, if we had any money. But we haven’t any, because I have spent all my own and borrowed and spent all of hers. We must wait now until you and Archer Bannister can send us new letters of credit or whatever it is that you call the papers on which the banking people here are so ready to give us all the money we want. Now I must ’fess up about the expenses. They have not been incurred for new gowns or for any other feminine frivolities. I’ve spent all my own money and all of Edmonia’s for chemicals and chemical apparatus, which I foresee that you and I will need in order to make medicines and salt and soda and saltpetre for our soldiers and people. I’ve ordered all these things sent by a ship that is going to Nassau, in the Bahama Islands, and the captain of the ship promises me that whether there is a blockade or not, he will get them through to you somehow or other. By the way the foolish fellow, who is a French naval officer, detailed for the merchant service, wanted me to marry him--isn’t it absurd?--and I told him we’d keep that question open till the chemicals and apparatus should be safe in your hands, and till he could come to you in the uniform of a Virginia officer, and ask you as my guardian, for permission to pay his addresses. Was it wrong, Cousin Arthur, thus to play with a fellow who never really loved anybody, but who simply wanted Pocahontas plantation? You see I’ve become very bad, and very knowing, since I’ve been without control, as I told you I would. But, anyhow, that Frenchman will get the things to you in safety.