as I write, for although I _think_ he loves me, he has not told me so in
words. But oh, Mina, I love him; I love him; I love him! There, that
does me good. I wish I were with you, dear, sitting by the fire
undressing, as we used to sit; and I would try to tell you what I feel.
I do not know how I am writing this even to you. I am afraid to stop,
or I should tear up the letter, and I don’t want to stop, for I _do_ so
want to tell you all. Let me hear from you _at once_, and tell me all
that you think about it. Mina, I must stop. Good-night. Bless me in your
prayers; and, Mina, pray for my happiness. “LUCY. “P.S.--I need not tell you this is a secret. Good-night again. “L.” Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray. “_24 May_. “My dearest Mina,-- “Thanks, and thanks, and thanks again for your sweet letter. It was so
nice to be able to tell you and to have your sympathy. “My dear, it never rains but it pours. How true the old proverbs are.
Here am I, who shall be twenty in September, and yet I never had a
proposal till to-day, not a real proposal, and to-day I have had three. Just fancy! THREE proposals in one day! Isn’t it awful! I feel sorry,
really and truly sorry, for two of the poor fellows. Oh, Mina, I am so
happy that I don’t know what to do with myself. And three proposals! But, for goodness’ sake, don’t tell any of the girls, or they would be
getting all sorts of extravagant ideas and imagining themselves injured
and slighted if in their very first day at home they did not get six at
least. Some girls are so vain! You and I, Mina dear, who are engaged and
are going to settle down soon soberly into old married women, can
despise vanity. Well, I must tell you about the three, but you must keep
it a secret, dear, from _every one_, except, of course, Jonathan. You
will tell him, because I would, if I were in your place, certainly tell
Arthur. A woman ought to tell her husband everything--don’t you think
so, dear?--and I must be fair. Men like women, certainly their wives, to
be quite as fair as they are; and women, I am afraid, are not always
quite as fair as they should be. Well, my dear, number One came just
before lunch. I told you of him, Dr. John Seward, the lunatic-asylum man, with the strong jaw and the good forehead. He was very cool
outwardly, but was nervous all the same. He had evidently been schooling
himself as to all sorts of little things, and remembered them; but he
almost managed to sit down on his silk hat, which men don’t generally do
when they are cool, and then when he wanted to appear at ease he kept
playing with a lancet in a way that made me nearly scream. He spoke to
me, Mina, very straightforwardly. He told me how dear I was to him,
though he had known me so little, and what his life would be with me to

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