MY OWN DEAR FOOLISH TRUE: I wonder if you think that because we have all been asleep, dreaming wonderful dreams,--chasing a rainbow, as you say,--that it is going to make any real difference in our lives now that we are awake. It may seem to make differences for a time--trifling differences in trifling things; it may even give us something to look back on and laugh about--something in the way of experience that to such as Van and Perny and yourself may be of use as material: but as to making any vital difference in whatever makes life full and beautiful and worth having, and that is love,--our love for each other, I mean,--why, True, the very thought of it is so absurd that I try not to be offended with you for even thinking it. "Do you remember, True, long ago, when you first wrote me about the paper, and I wrote you that, while I was glad for your sake, I was not enthusiastic over the undertaking? That was my real self, True, and was from the heart--the same heart that is more enthusiastic now over the failure of it all than it ever was over the beginning. If I was dazzled for a time by the fair colors in the sky,--if I seized your hand, and with you and Barry and Perny and Van and the Colonel went racing down the wet meadows for the pot of gold,--it does not mean that I am any the less glad to wake up now and find that life is something better than all that; that true life lies in doing conscientiously whatever we can do best; that such dreams only serve to make our best work better, and that still better than all of these is youth and love--our youth, True, and our love for each other. "No, True; I am not going to take back my promise. What do you suppose I care for the few dollars you have lost? You are no less good and noble--no less capable than before; and as for the times, they will change--they always do. It almost hurts me to realize that you could think I would ever let you send me off even for what you considered my own good. And I will not go, you see. You can't send me away--unless, indeed, you do not want me any more, and then, of course, you will say so, and I will go. Forgive me, True; I do not mean that; but I must punish you the least bit because--because I am a woman, I suppose.