Dearie: I am just wondering if you thought as much about something so
sweet that happened last night as I did you know what. I think it was
the sweetest thing. I send you one with this note and I hope you will
think it is a sweet one. I would give you a real one if you were here
now and I hope you would think it was sweeter still than the one I put
in this note. It is the sweetest thing now you are mine and I am yours
forever kiddo. If you come around about friday eve it will be all right.
aunt Jess will be gone back home by then so come early and we will get
Sade and Alb and go to the band Concert. Don't forget what I said about
my putting something sweet in this note, and I hope you will think it is
a sweet one but not as sweet as the _real_ sweet one I would like to--

At this point Ramsey impulsively tore the note into small pieces. He
turned cold as his imagination projected a sketch of his mother in
the act of reading this missive, and of her expression as she read the
sentence: "It is the sweetest thing now you are mine and I am yours
forever kiddo." He wished that Milla hadn't written "kiddo." She called
him that, sometimes, but in her warm little voice the word seemed not at
all what it did in ink. He wished, too, that she hadn't said she was his
forever.

Suddenly he was seized with a horror of her.

Moisture broke out heavily upon him; he felt a definite sickness, and,
wishing for death, went forth upon the streets to walk and walk. He
cared not whither, so that his feet took him in any direction away from
Milla, since they were unable to take him away from himself--of whom he
had as great a horror. Her loving face was continually before him, and
its sweetness made his flesh creep. Milla had been too sweet.