What stupid letters I write! Doesn't it frighten you when you read
them and think that is the person with whom I have to spend my life.
Yet you never seem alarmed about it. I think it is so BRAVE of you.
That reminds me that I never finished what I wanted to say at the
beginning of this letter. Even supposing that I am pretty (and my
complexion sometimes is simply awful), you must bear in mind how
quickly the years slip by, and how soon a woman alters. Why, we
shall hardly be married before you will find me full of wrinkles, and
without a tooth in my head. Poor boy, how dreadful for you! Men
seem to change so little and so slowly. Besides, it does not matter
for them, for nobody marries a man because he is pretty. But you
must marry me, Frank, not for what I look but for what I am--for my
inmost, inmost self, so that if I had no body at all, you would love
me just the same. That is how I love you, but I do prefer you with
your body on all the same. I don't know how I love you, dear. I
only know that I am in a dream when you are near me--just a beautiful
dream. I live for those moments.--Ever your own little

MAUDE.

P.S.--Papa gave us such a fright, for he came in just now and said
that the window-cleaner and all his family were very ill. This was a
joke, because the coachman had told him about my tart. Wasn't it
horrid of him?


Woking, June 17th.

My own sweetest Maude,--I do want you to come up to town on Saturday