Very truly yours DAVID GRESHAM COLLINS “‘Slender bonds’!” she muttered. “I didn’t know that I was bound at all, though I act as if I were. Of course, I’m ‘free,’ and I will be free, too, David Collins! As if you must tell me so! I wish I’d gone over to the Inn with Russell--I will next time he asks me. I won’t be under David’s thumb any longer! To think of his making such a fuss because I rode up with Russell--just rode up the hill with him! “But how did he hear of my being with him?” Polly questioned. “We didn’t meet anybody--yes, Doris Gaylord was out on the veranda. She may have seen me. I didn’t think so. Anything she knew, Marietta’d know--that is sure. And by this time Marietta may be up there herself.” She pondered the matter for some minutes, while alternately her face flushed and paled. “Could Marietta--?” She shut her lips with a contemptuous little breath. “Let her!” she scorned. “I won’t follow David Collins’s lead.” CHAPTER III DAVID MAKES A REQUEST The next morning Polly was at the door as usual when the letter-carrier came. She could not have told why. Certainly she did not expect a letter. Mechanically she received the bunch of mail, mechanically she threw off the envelopes and papers, one by one, on the hall table. Then she stared. There was the familiar handwriting! The rest of the lot was dropped in an unsorted pile, and upstairs she sped with the letter from David. She locked her door and flew to the window-seat. This time she did not pause to note the lines of the superscription. She tore open the envelope with eager fingers. MY DARLING POLLY: I suppose before this you have received that horrible letter that I wrote you when I was grass-green with jealousy. Throw it in the fire right now! Don’t, don’t ever read it again! I was an outrageous cad to write it, anyhow. But when Marietta and Doris came up here with that story, I was just beside myself. I dare say Doris put in plenty of touches of her own. Do write that you are not angry with me! Write the very next mail! It is unbelievable that I could send you such a thing-- Just my luck! The mail-boy is here, and not another chance to send to the office to-day! A longer letter to-morrow. Always your own DAVID Polly read it over with a smile. Again, and the smile changed to a sigh. Once more, and sorrow came into her eyes. How like David! Mad with jealousy one day, and wild with penitence the next! Why must it be so? Why couldn’t he trust her? She drew a chair to her desk and made ready to write. Then she took out the letter of yesterday and looked it over; she read again the one just received; finally she dipped her pen in ink. She wrote fast until she had filled a sheet. Pausing to read it through, she crushed it in her hand, tossed it into the waste-basket, and began another.