I seem to be floundering in a sea of metaphor--but I hope you grasp my
meaning? Anyway, I have a very strong feeling that the only honest
thing for me to do is to teach this summer and begin to support myself.
MAGNOLIA,
Four days later I'd got just that much written, when--what do you think happened? The
maid arrived with Master Jervie's card. He is going abroad too this
summer; not with Julia and her family, but entirely by himself I told
him that you had invited me to go with a lady who is chaperoning a
party of girls. He knows about you, Daddy. That is, he knows that my
father and mother are dead, and that a kind gentleman is sending me to
college; I simply didn't have the courage to tell him about the John
Grier Home and all the rest. He thinks that you are my guardian and a
perfectly legitimate old family friend. I have never told him that I
didn't know you--that would seem too queer!
Anyway, he insisted on my going to Europe. He said that it was a
necessary part of my education and that I mustn't think of refusing.
Also, that he would be in Paris at the same time, and that we would run
away from the chaperon occasionally and have dinner together at nice,
funny, foreign restaurants.
Well, Daddy, it did appeal to me! I almost weakened; if he hadn't been
so dictatorial, maybe I should have entirely weakened. I can be
enticed step by step, but I WON'T be forced. He said I was a silly,
foolish, irrational, quixotic, idiotic, stubborn child (those are a few
of his abusive adjectives; the rest escape me), and that I didn't know
what was good for me; I ought to let older people judge. We almost
quarrelled--I am not sure but that we entirely did!
In any case, I packed my trunk fast and came up here. I thought I'd
better see my bridges in flames behind me before I finished writing to
you. They are entirely reduced to ashes now. Here I am at Cliff Top
(the name of Mrs. Paterson's cottage) with my trunk unpacked and
Florence (the little one) already struggling with first declension
nouns. And it bids fair to be a struggle! She is a most uncommonly
spoiled child; I shall have to teach her first how to study--she has
never in her life concentrated on anything more difficult than
ice-cream soda water.
We use a quiet corner of the cliffs for a schoolroom--Mrs. Paterson
wishes me to keep them out of doors--and I will say that I find it
difficult to concentrate with the blue sea before me and ships
a-sailing by! And when I think I might be on one, sailing off to
foreign lands--but I WON'T let myself think of anything but Latin
Grammar.