Why don’t you cut loose and come to N. Y.? This is the only place to live. You can choose the kind of life you want and live it, and get all there is of existence. Come on and get in with the bunch! You can get a studio in a top story and raise tomatters on the roof if you must have ’em. I’ll help you tend to ’em. Come on and learn the beauty of a quiet life. Get away from the feverish round of gayeties that you’ve been accustomed to—men taking you out rowing (wasn’t he tall and dark, with a drooping moustache?) and men coming in the Pullman cars and sitting close by your side—oh, I haven’t forgotten about it! Often I’ve gotten out a couple of dozen sheets of paper and started to write to you, when I’d think: oh, what’s the use—she won’t want to hear from me—somebody’s ripping the buttonholes out of his collar trying to pull up car windows for her, or pulling on the wrong oar and rowing the boat into a mud bank where they’ll sit for hours until some plowman plods along and drags them out. Please, dear Carrie, write to me some more. If you had saved all the letters I’ve written to you in the spirit you’d have a stack as high as the big sunflower by the garden gate. Write and tell me exactly what you think about when you take your hair down and sit on the rug at 11:30 P. M. before the fireplace. And I’ll tell you what I think about when I set the bottle of Scotch on the table and light the last cigar at 2 A. M., when the distant cars and cabs sound like the ripples of your mountain streams on a still summer night. I send the ghost of a magnolia up to your window. Yours as ever, BOB. _April 4th._ I find a P.S. from Bobby this afternoon and the ghost of a magnolia that failed to get in the other letter. MA CHÉRIE MLLE. CARRIE: Here’s a magnolia. I know you believe I am “without the pale” and “N. G.,” but I write again because I do not believe that I am. If you come to N. Y. this spring I reckon as how you won’t want to see me because you think I am short on etiquette. All right for youse! I’ll watch all the rubberneck coaches, and when I see a little pink-cheeked girl in a straw hat with daisies on it and a white dress with a pink sash, chewing sweetgum—(for shame, Bobby)—and making eyes at the Brooklyn Bridge, I’ll know who it is, and look at you all I please. So, au revoir, Miss Howard. I am still yours sincerely. R. H. _April 5th._