K."
* * * * *
"_New York, Jan. 30, 18--._
"MY MARJORIE:
"Your long letter has been read and re-read, and then read aloud to
Linnet. She laughed over it, and brushed her eyes over it; and then it
was laid away in my archives for future reference. It is a perfect
afternoon, the sun is shining, and the pavements are as dry as in May.
Linnet endeavored to coax me out, as it is her holiday afternoon, and
Broadway will be alive with handsome dresses and handsome faces, and
there are some new paintings to be seen. But I was proof against her
coaxing as this unwritten letter pressed on my heart, so she has
contented herself with Helen's younger sister, Nannie, and they will have
a good time together and bring their good time home to me, for Nannie is
to come home to dinner with her. Linnet looked like a veritable linnet in
her brown suit with the crimson plume in her brown hat; I believe the
girl affects grays and brown with a dash of crimson, because they remind
her of a linnet, and she _is_ like a linnet in her low, sweet voice, not
strong, but clear. She will be a lovely, symmetrical woman when she comes
out of the fire purified. How do I know she will ever be put in any
furnace? Because all God's children must suffer at some times, and then
they know they are his children. And she loves Will so vehemently, so
idolatrously, that I fear the sorrow may be sent through him; not in any
withdrawing of his love, he is too thoroughly true for that, not in any
great wickedness he may commit, he is too humble and too reliant upon the
keeping power of God to be allowed to fall into that, but--she may not
have him always, and then, I fear, her heart would really break.
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