Last, but by no means least, there is Smiles herself. I wish that I could adequately express my thoughts about her, but I can't. However, I no longer wonder how a mountain child like that could have captivated you so, as I did when you first described her to me. She is adorable. For the life of me I can't understand how a girl, bred in this wilderness, could have such a fine soul and personality--not to speak of her intellect, which daily startles me more. But, of course, she is of cultured stock--she _must_ be--and I have always believed that the forces of heredity are paramount to those of environment. Do I sound like a school-mar'm? Well, that is what I am. It may surprise you to learn, as much as it does me to realize, that I have turned back to schooldays with an enthusiasm which I never felt when I was going through them, and that I spend more time as a teacher than as a nurse. Smiles simply _absorbs_ education--I never knew anything like it--and I am as confident as she that her dream of going through the "C. H." and becoming a trained nurse, will come to pass. And won't she make a wonderful one? Be warned that when she _does_ go north I intend to dispute with you the right to regard her as a protege. I couldn't love her as I do, already, if she were not so completely human, and it amuses me immensely the way she wheedles the natives and keeps them in good humor by using that comical mountain lingo--although she can speak as grammatically as any one, when she wants to. She just smiles at one of them, and says, "Now haint thet jest _toe_ sweet of ye," and they fall down and worship. Don't be surprised if you hear me say some day, "Wall, doctor, thet air shor' er powerful preety operation, an' I air plumb obleeged ter ye fer thet yo' let me holp ye with hit." I'm catching it, too. I hope that you will forgive the liberties which I have taken in writing like this, but I had to do it. Sincerely yours, Gertrude Merriman. P.S. You were right in your conjecture. Since you would not accept the whole, or any part of Smiles' precious savings--and your refusal nearly broke her heart until I made her understand that physicians never charged _members of their family_--she wanted me to take it. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - THE SECOND Webb's Gap, Jan. 22, 1914 Dearest Doctor Mac, My heart is broken. Dear granddaddy died last night. Of course I know that it had to be, and that he is so much happier now in the spirit body, and with Ma Webb (he talked about her all yesterday, and I really think that his soul was speaking with hers); but he was so dear to me that I can hardly bear to think that he has gone away.