You would laugh in your sleeve, you wretched old cynic, if you knew how I lie awake nights, with my gas turned down to a star, thinking of The Pines and the house across the road. How cool it must be down there! I long for the salt smell in the air. I picture the colonel smoking his cheroot on the piazza. I send you and Miss Daw off on afternoon rambles along the beach. Sometimes I let you stroll with her under the elms in the moonlight, for you are great friends by this time, I take it, and see each other every day. I know your ways and your manners! Then I fall into a truculent mood, and would like to destroy somebody. Have you noticed anything in the shape of a lover hanging around the colonel Lares and Penates? Does that lieutenant of the horse-marines or that young Stillwater parson visit the house much? Not that I am pining for news of them, but any gossip of the kind would be in order. I wonder, Ned, you don’t fall in love with Miss Daw. I am ripe to do it myself. Speaking of photographs, couldn’t you manage to slip one of her cartes-de-visite from her album--she must have an album, you know--and send it to me? I will return it before it could be missed. That’s a good fellow! Did the mare arrive safe and sound? It will be a capital animal this autumn for Central Park. Oh--my leg? I forgot about my leg. It’s better. VII. EDWARD DELANEY TO JOHN FLEMMIMG. August 20, 1872. You are correct in your surmises. I am on the most friendly terms with our neighbors. The colonel and my father smoke their afternoon cigar together in our sitting-room or on the piazza opposite, and I pass an hour or two of the day or the evening with the daughter. I am more and more struck by the beauty, modesty, and intelligence of Miss Daw.