should a man want to take an independent, explosive, impudent firebrand
with all sorts of dreadful plots in her mind to his heart? He wouldn't
and doesn't!

There is no better sedative for a woman's disturbed and wounded emotions
than a little stiff brain work. Richard's letter braced my viny drooping
of mind at once and from thinking into the Crag's affairs of sentiment,
I turned with masculine vigor to begin to mix into his affairs of
finance. However, I wish that the first big business letter I ever got
in my life hadn't had to have a strain of love interest running through
it! Still Dickie is a trump card in the man pack.

It seems that as his father is one of the most influential directors
and largest stockholders in this new branch of the Cincinnati and Gulf
railroad he has got the commission for making the plans for all the
stations along the road, and he wants to give me the commission for
drawing all the gardens for all the station-yards. It will be tremendous
for both of us so young in life, and I never dared hope for such a
thing. I had only hoped to get a few private gardens of some of my
friends to laze and pose over, but this is startling. My mind is
beginning to work on in terms of hedges and fountains already and Dickie
may be coming South any minute.

And besides the hedges and gravel paths I have a feeling that Dickie's
father and the Crag and Sallie's girl-babies are fomenting around in my
mind getting ready to pop the cork of an idea soon. The combination
feels like some kind of a hunch--I sat still for a long time and let it
seethe, while I took stock of the situation.

There is a strange, mysterious kind of peace that begins to creep across