“But all this nonsense isn’t what I wanted to write to you. I want to go home and I will go home, even if I have to accept Jefferson Peyton’s offer to furnish the money necessary. We simply mustn’t be shut out of Virginia when the war comes, and nobody can tell when it will come now. But of course I shall not let Jeff furnish the money. That was only a strong way of putting it. For Jeff has insulted me, I think. I’m not quite certain, but I think that is what it amounts to. You will know, and I’m going to tell you all about it, just as I used to tell you all about everything, before--well before all this sort of thing. Jeff has been travelling about ever since we began our journey, and he has really been very nice to us, and very useful sometimes. But a few days ago he proposed marriage to me. I was disposed to be very kindly in my treatment of him, because I rather like the poor fellow. But when I told him I didn’t in the least think of marrying him or anybody else, he lost his temper, and had the assurance to say that the time would come when I would be very grateful to him for being willing to offer me _such a road out of my difficulties_. He didn’t explain, for I instantly rang for a servant to show him out of the hotel parlor, and myself retired by another door. But, I think I know what he meant, because I have found out all about myself and my mother, all the things that people have been so laboriously endeavoring to keep me from finding out. And among other things I have found out that I must marry Jeff Peyton or nobody. So I will marry nobody, so long as I live. I’ll be like Aunt Polly, just good and useful in the world. “I’ll write you all about this by the next steamer, if I can make up my mind to do it--that is to say if I find that in spite of all, I may go on thinking of you as my best friend on earth, and telling you everything that troubles me just as I used to tell dear old mammy, when the bees stung me or the daisies wilted before I could make them into a pretty chain. I have a great longing to tell you things in the old, frank, unreserved way, and to feel the comfort of your strong support in doing what it is right for me to do. Somehow, all this distance has seemed to make it difficult to do that. But now that my fate in life is settled and my career fully marked out as a woman whose only ambition is to be as useful as possible, I may talk to you, mayn’t I, in the old, unreserved way, in full assurance that you won’t let me make any mistakes? “That is what I want. So I have this moment decided that I will not wait for you to send me a new letter of credit, but will find somebody here to lend me enough money to go home on. In the meantime I’m going to begin being the old, frank, truthful Dorothy, by writing you, by the next steamer, all that I have learned about myself.” XXXIV DOROTHY’S DISCOVERY