MY DEAR AUNT,—Just one more word, then!—but only to say it’s no good, I can’t agree with you. The idea of marriage being necessarily warfare is utterly repugnant to me, and unless a miracle happens I shall continue to go on doing my best to be happy though single. I see no reason whatever for people to scrap, and those who like it always fill me with a kind of disgust. Married life should be all friendliness and niceness. I feel so strongly about married happiness that I believe if I were asked to name my favorite poem in all poetry I should give the old epitaph on the husband who so quickly followed his wife to the grave: She first deceased; he for a little tried To live without her, liked it not, and died. No news of Horace for quite a long time. I suspect him of searching London for an apothecary of the Romeo and Juliet type who can provide love-philtres and I shall look at my drink very narrowly the next time he dines here or I meet him out. It would be like him to put a love-philtre on the market.—Your loving H. XLVII CLEMENCY POWER TO BRYAN FIELD DEAR DOCTOR,—It was very nice of you to write and I am sorry that I missed those other letters. If you kept them, please send them on. I am now in a very different employment from that which I had when we used to meet. I am reader to an invalid lady—not, I hope, a permanent invalid, and most emphatically not one of your desired _malades imaginaires_—who lives in a beautiful house in Herefordshire. My duties are not confined to reading aloud but comprise a hundred other things and I am very happy. I don’t say that I don’t often regret those rough jolly boys, but one could not wish the War to last longer just for one’s own entertainment. I wonder how some of our old friends are—that poor Madame La Touche, does she still carry round the bill of damage done and horses taken which the Germans some day are to pay? And old Gaston, are his repentances and good resolutions any more binding? How long ago it all seems, and, though so real, how like a dream! I hope you will find a practice to your mind, but I am sure you don’t really want an idle one. I know too much about your zealous way with sick and wounded men ever to believe that.—I am, yours sincerely, CLEMENCY POWER _P.S._—What does “begob” mean? I don’t understand foreign languages. XLVIII LOUISA PARRISH TO VERENA RABY MY DEAR VERENA,—I was glad to have your niece’s letter saying that you are progressing nicely. I am so afraid of those falls, and you never know even when you feel well again whether there may not be some underlying trouble to break out again at any moment. We shall all pray that nothing of the kind will happen to you. I can’t help wishing that you had the advantage of being attended by our dear Dr. Courage. He is so clever and kind and thoughtful.