forgot all else. But my manners have returned by slow degrees and in hunting through my desk for a bill I found you and so take up my pen. I am quite sure that—in spite of that beautiful opening play of mine—you are wondering why I am really writing and so I will tell you at once. When Bob comes here to stay with me I want Mr. Denham to come too. I have various reasons for wanting him to come. One is that he has nowhere else to go where he will have half as good a time as he will here and another is that if he goes anywhere else I won’t have half as good a time as if he comes here. Pray excuse my brutal candor, but I am only a woman; brutal candor and womanly weakness always have gone about encouraging one another, you know. I cannot see any good reason for Mr. Denham’s not coming except that he declines my invitation. It is very silly in him, and I regard it as no reason at all. I am quite unused to being declined and do not intend to acquire the habit until I am a good deal older than I was my last birthday. Still, I can understand that he is too big to force against his will, so I think the kindest way to break the back of the opposition will be for me to do it personally. As an over-ruler I nearly always succeed. All I require is an opportunity. Please lay the two halves of your brain evenly together and devise a train and an interview for me. Of course you will meet me at the train and leave me at the interview. These are the fundamental rules of my game. I know that you are clever and before we have left the station you will know that I am. As arch-conspirators we shall surely win out together, won’t we? 

 Yours very truly, BERTHA ROSSCOTT. 

 This missive posted, Jack’s good angel made herself patient until the afternoon of the next day when she might and did expect an answer. 

 She was not disappointed. The letter came and it was pleasantly bulky and appeared ample enough to have contained an indexed gun powder plot. She was so sure that Mitchell had been fully equal to the occasion that she tore the envelope open with a smile—and read: 

 MY DEAR MRS. ROSSCOTT:  To think of my having some of your handwriting for my own!—I was nearly petrified with joy. You see I know your writing from having read Burnett all those “Burn this at once” epistles. And I know it still better from having to catalogue them for his ready reference. You know how impatient he is. (But I have run into an open switch and must digress backwards.) I shall preserve your letter till I die. In war I shall wear it carefully spread all over wherever I may be killed, and in peace I intend to 

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