Well, now, mother, I've got to tell you, nothing has turned out the same as I thought it would. Undine gave me to understand that she liked me first rate, and she knew well enough that I was fascinated with her from the minute I set eyes on her. I could see she thought the house and barn was kind of run down and common-looking, and I figured it out that if I made improvements enough in the premises and got everything fixed up fashionable, she'd marry me when the fall term of school was over. She was young and handsome and had more education than me, and she not being used to housework, I figured it out that I'd make things as easy and pleasant for her as I could, and try to keep up with the band more than you or I was used to. Well, mother, I was fooled all round, and I guess I ain't the first man, neither. My improvements wouldn't 'a' had any weight with her, though I'd sweated all summer over 'em, even working 4th of July and right through dog-days without hardly sitting down to a square meal or stopping to change my shirt. She'd made up her mind to ship me even before she seen the cement walk and the electric lights and the lace curtain in the front door, which has attracted more attention than a circus ever sence it was put in. When we said good-bye, she told me to go ahead and it would be all right. I took it as a sacred promise, and oh, mother, it mortifies me to confess how clean gone I was on that girl! The way it turned out was this: I got so upset and worried by not hearing from her by the last of August that I couldn't stand it any longer. If she'd stayed to home in Greenford, I could have drove over every week or two and kept her up to her word, or else, though I was blind as a bat, I might have seen through her; but when I wrote you all the news in July you remember I said, "Undine Berry has gone on a visit to Albany with her father." Well, she stayed in Albany, and she didn't correspond with me but one note and one post-card which I answered to general delivery, having no address. I didn't write her all the grand things I was doing, because her being a school-teacher, I figured it out that she'd catch me up on some mistake in spelling and turn me down cold. Well, mother, she done that anyway all right! I had gone to Wareham to pay bills and telephone to Greenford where nobody could hear me asking questions about Undine. The school committee was expecting her every train, but she hadn't written to them for weeks. Well, mother, I was gone four hours, and when I come home my heart sunk right down, for the house looked strange to me. I knew something had happened to the premises and to me, and sure enough it was so. I hitched the horse and went up the cement walk, because Undine said once a gentleman should use the front door, and I've done it all summer for practice. I always felt like a fool when I went in that way, and now I've locked it on the inside.