"Yes, I will type the envelope and mark it PERSONAL, lest the chaste eyes of Miss Anderson be stricken unto confusion and dismay. Damn 'em, why hasn't the Postoffice a Bureau of Hollow Oaks? Ooh--now I think of it, there is--not an oak, but a big maple with a hole in the trunk about seven feet above ground, on the path between your house and Mother's, near the pond. I saw a squirrel in residence there last year, stuck his head out and told me with the usual fuss that it was his'n. No good, I guess, because he's probably still there, and would think poorly of anyone dropping a letter into his living-room. He'd eat it or use it for nest-lining. That's how Nature is, you know, not a bit cooperative with the frills of romance, only with the essentials--but there, how cooperative indeed! As if, so far as Nature cares, every atom, every motion of life were aimed at nothing but the mounting of female by male and the begetting of young. Well, it comes to me that you with your long legs could reach that hole in the maple, though I'd have to stand on something. It comes to me that a letter could be squirrel-proofed in a metal box. Let us reflect on this." Members of the jury, I might say in passing that because of this mention in the letter, the maple tree in question was examined. It does have a hole in it, nearer eight feet above ground than seven. Nothing was found there except an abandoned squirrel's nest; no sign of any previous disturbance by a human agency. [_Laughter by the defendant._] I see Miss Blake is amused, which is her privilege I suppose. [_Disturbance at rear of room, a man (James Doherty) leaving his seat for the exit; Mr. Hunter waiting for quiet._] The letter resumes: "I love you as a sleeping seed in the earth must love the rains of spring, blindly, thoughtlessly, responding because it must--the shell breaks underground from the inward pressure, the outer warmth and fertile moisture. Shall I one day become a flower for you and know the sun? I am still in the dark, and rather blind, and yet happy to be living. You my awakener, it seems to me you're finding no such happiness. Am I too much for you, Jimmy? Too weird and different? Poor Jimmy, did you want only that May-day moment, and then discover the dryad had caught you fast and would not let go? There are thorns in my branches, I suppose. I never wanted them to wound. Oh, I must write no more like this, or I'll be needing you too much to sleep.