The Emblems of Fidelity: A Comedy in LettersAllen, James Lane
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The Emblems of Fidelity: A Comedy in Letters
Allen, James Lane
Authors -- Fiction; Epistolary fiction; Manners and customs -- Fiction
_To-morrow night_, then, without fail, you and I!
POLLY BOLES.
POLLY BOLES AND BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE TO
BEVERLEY SANDS
[Late at night of the same day]
_June 15._
DEAR BEVERLEY:
We have talked the matter over and send you our conjoined
congratulations that your engagement is broken off and your immediate
peril ended. But our immediate caution is that the end of the
betrothal will not necessarily mean the end of entanglement: the
tempter will at once turn away from you in pursuit of another man.
She will begin to weave her web about _him_. But if possible she
will still hold _you_ to that web by a single thread. Now, more than
ever, you will need to be on your guard, if such a thing is possible
to such a nature as yours.
Not until obliged will she ever let you go completely. She hath a
devil--perhaps the most famous devil in all the world--the love
devil. And all devils, famous or not famous, are poor quitters.
(Signed)
POLLY BOLES for Ben Doolittle.
BEN DOOLITTLE for Polly Boles.
(His handwriting; her ideas
and language.)
TILLY SNOWDEN TO DR. MARIGOLD
MY DEAR DR. MARIGOLD:
This is the third time within the past several months that I have
requested you to let me have your bill for professional services. I
shall not suppose that you have relied upon my willingness to remain
under an obligation of this kind; nor do I like to think I have
counted for so little among your many patients that you have not
cared whether I paid you or not. If your motive has been kindness, I
must plainly tell you that I do not desire such kindness; and if
there has been no motive at all, but simply indifference, I must
remind you that this indifference means disrespect and that I resent
it.
The things you have indirectly done for me in other ways--the songs,
the books and magazines, the flowers--these I accept with warm
responsive hands and a lavish mind.
And with words not yet uttered, perhaps never to be uttered.
Yours sincerely,
TILLY SNOWDEN.
_June the Seventeenth._
TILLY SNOWDEN TO DR. MARIGOLD
MY DEAR DR. MARIGOLD:
I have your bill and I make the due remittance with all due thanks.
Your note pleasantly reassures me how greatly you are obliged that I
could put you in correspondence with some Kentucky cousins about the
purchase of a Kentucky saddle-horse. It was a pleasure; in fact, a
matter of some pride to do this, and I am delighted that they could
furnish you a horse you approve.
While taking my customary walk in the Park yesterday morning, I had a
chance to see you and your new mount making acquaintance with one
another. I can pay you no higher compliment than to say that you
ride like a Kentuckian.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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