Delancy Mr. James Harroll to Miss Catharine Delancy, Avalon, Balboa County, Florida. "Holy Cross Light, February 15. "Holy Cross Light, February 15. Holy Cross Light, February "Dear Catharine—Your father was right: they refuse to take me at Avalon. As soon as I found your note I telegraphed to Avalon for accommodations. It seems Avalon is an island, and they have to wait for the steamers to carry telegrams over from the mainland. So the reply has just reached me that they won't take me for less than a month;[Pg 27] and my limit from business is two weeks or give up my position with your father. Dear Catharine [Pg 27] "Yesterday I came out here to Holy Cross Spring to shoot ducks. I'd scarcely begun shooting, at dawn, when along came a couple of men through the fog, rowing like the mischief plump into my decoys, and I shouted out, 'What the deuce are you about?' and they begged my pardon, and said they had thought the point unoccupied, and that the fog was thicker than several things—which was true. "So I invited them into the blind to—oh, the usual ceremony—and they came, and they turned out to be Jack Selden—the chap I told you about who was so decent to me in Paris—and his guide. "So we had—ceremonies—several of them—and Selden stayed to shoot with me over my decoys, and our bag was fifty-three, all big duck except fifteen bluebills. "Selden is a godsend to me. We're going to stay out here to-night at the lighthouse, and shoot all to-morrow if it doesn't blow too hard. It's blowing great guns now. I'm here in the lighthouse, writing in the glow of a lamp in the keeper's living-room, with his good little wife sewing by the fire and a half-dozen of his kids tumbling about on the floor. It's a pretty sight; I love children and firesides and that sort of thing. They've got hold of Selden now,[Pg 28] and are making him tell stories of adventure. He's been all over the world, and is perfectly crazy to get married. Says he would prefer a widow with yellow
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