letter I shall ever write to you. I said I loved Accident, but that

depends on how she looks. To-day I do not like the looks of her. I cut her acquaintance. If you never hear from me again, remember how I loved you.

Aunt Lorena and Uncle David are putting the last touches to things, and I am sitting on the porch scribbling in my notebook. From here we can see thirty peaks and many valleys and rivers. The rivers are silver threads in the purple distance, winding and winding. There is an eagle just above the house, probably come to see that we get safely away. I wish he would teach me how to fly so that I wouldn’t have to ride in that terrible machine.

The only thing that cheers me up is the thought that I am really going home. After so many homeless years, or years in which I had a home only by the kindness of others, I am going to my own home, to my own grandmother, blood of my blood, the mother of my father.

Do you suppose those who love us and are dead, know what is happening to us? Is my own little mother seeing me this day? Is she glad I am going to the home which never opened its doors to her? Am I loyal to her in going? These questions are too hard for me to answer. I only know that my uncle and aunt would be shocked and deeply offended if I did not go with them, and I remember that to the last my mother loved my father.

When she lay dead that day in dear Mother McBirney’s house, they found in the leather pocket book she carried, a little piece of dark hair which must have been his, with her “wedding lines,” as Mother McBirney called them, and a little blurred picture which was, no doubt, of him. But her tears or the rain had dimmed it so we could barely see it.

Your letter was brought me last night, Carin, and was the greatest sort of a comfort. Oh, I knew you would understand.

Aren’t you taking too many studies? You mustn’t wear yourself out. Never forget that you are going to be an artist and that you have to consider your talent above everything else. So be careful not to use yourself up on mathematics and physics and all those things.

I am glad you are having some good times. That young man who sent you flowers is a Southerner, is he? From Charleston? Why didn’t you tell me his name? Perhaps I shall be meeting him. For I am to meet people. I mean, I am to meet them the way you do. Aunt Lorena will give a “coming out” party for me. It rather amuses me. Poor Azalea, with her boots covered with red mud and her hands scratched with briars and burned with cooking and pricked with sewing, and her hair tumbled every which way, Azalea who can whistle through her fingers as well as Jim or Hi or any of the boys, who can climb a fence in a jiffy and shin up a tree if necessary, to stand all perfumed and proper, in a wonderful old drawing-room, saying: “Thank you, madam, you are very good to say so.” “Thank you, sir, indeed I am very much honored to meet my grandmother’s old friends.” Can you hear me? I wish you could in reality. Perhaps I can get my aunt to put off the party till Thanksgiving. If so, could you dash down to Mallowbanks? It is not far from Charleston. You could take a few extra days from college, couldn’t you?

The very thought of it puts new courage into me. You will find my new address within. Write me at once. I shall insist that Annie Laurie come to my party also. What a reunion that would be! To have the old friends and the new together would be something to remember always.

Maybe the young-man-who-sent-the-roses will be home for Thanksgiving. Then he could come too, and I would see if he was nice enough to—to be allowed to send you roses.

Do you suppose Keefe could come? But he wouldn’t, would he? At least, not unless I got an order for him to paint a portrait. And how could I do that? But maybe I can insist that he shall paint a portrait of my grandmother for me. My own grandmother!

There, Uncle David is cranking that terrible machine. I must go. Carin, we who go to die salute thee!

I will you my amber beads.

_Tremblingly_,

_Azalea_.