What reply, then, in your behalf am I to send to the lofty and benevolent Blackthornes? As matters halt between us--he also loves who only writes and waits--I can merely inform Mr. Blackthorne that there is a Mrs. Beverley Sands, but that she persists in remaining a Miss Snowden. With this realisation of what you will lose as Miss Snowden and will gain as Mrs. Sands, do you not think it wise--and wise you are, Tilly--any longer to persist in your persistence? You once, in a moment of weakness, confessed to me--think of your having a moment of weakness!--you once confessed to me, though you may deny it now (Balzac defines woman as the angel or devil who denies everything when it suits her), you once confessed to me that you feared your life would be taken up with two protracted pleasures, each of which curtailed the other: the pleasure of being engaged to me a long time and the pleasure of being married to me a long time. Nerve yourself to shortening the first in order to enter upon the compensations of the second. Yet remorse racks me even at the prospect of obliterating from the world one whom I first knew and loved in it as Tilly Snowden. Where will Tilly Snowden be when only Mrs. Beverley Sands is left? Where will be that wild rose in a snow bank--the rose which was truly wild, the snow bank which was not cold (or was it?)? I think I should easily become reconciled to your being known, say, as Madame Snowden, so that you might still stand out in your own right and wild-rose individuality. We could visit England as the rising American author, Beverley Sands, and his lovely risen wife, Madame Snowden. Everybody would then be asking who the mysterious Madame Snowden was, and I should relate that she was a retired opera singer--having retired before she advanced. By the way, you confided to me some time ago that you were not very well. You always _look_ well, mighty well to _me_, Tilly. Perfectly well to _me_. Can your indisposition be imaginary? Or is it merely fashionable? Or--is it something else? What of late has sickened me is an idea of yours that you might sometime consult Doctor G. M. Tilly! Tilly! If you knew the pains that rack me when I think of that charlatan's door being closed behind you as a patient of his! Tell me it isn't true, and answer about the beautiful Blackthornes! Your easy and your uneasy BEVERLEY. TILLY SNOWDEN TO BEVERLEY SANDS _"Slippery Elm" Apartments, June 4._ I am perfectly willing, Beverley, to crown you with slippery elm--you seem to think I keep it on hand, dwell in a bower of it--if it is the leaf you sigh for. But please do not try to crown me with a wig of your creative hair; that is, with your literary honours.