CLOVER (Beloved Children's Books Series). Susan Coolidge

it’s a book, and she hopes you will read Emerson’s ‘Essay on Friendship’ over before you are married, because it’s a helpful utterance, and adjusts the mind to mutual conditions.”

      “Worse than 1 Timothy, ii. 11,” muttered Clover. “Well, Katy dear, what next? What are you laughing at?”

      “You will never guess, I am sure. This is a letter from Miss Jane! And she has made me this pincushion!”

      The pincushion was of a familiar type, two circles of pasteboard covered with gray silk, neatly over-handed together, and stuck with a row of closely fitting pins. Miss Jane’s note ran as follows:—

      Hillsover, April 21.

      Dear Katy,—I hear from Mrs. Nipson that you are to be married shortly, and I want to say that you have my best wishes for your future. I think a man ought to be happy who has you for a wife. I only hope the one you have chosen is worthy of you. Probably he isn’t, but perhaps you won’t find it out. Life is a knotty problem for most of us. May you solve it satisfactorily to yourself and others! I have nothing to send but my good wishes and a few pins. They are not an unlucky present, I believe, as scissors are said to be.

      Remember me to your sister, and believe me to be with true regard,

      Yours,

       Jane A. Bangs.

      “Dear me, is that her name?” cried Clover. “I always supposed she was baptized ‘Miss Jane.’ It never occurred to me that she had any other title. What appropriate initials! How she used to J.A.B. with us!”

      “Now, Clovy, that’s not kind. It’s a very nice note indeed, and I am touched by it. It’s a beautiful compliment to say that the man ought to be happy who has got me, I think. I never supposed that Miss Jane could pay a compliment.”

      “Or make a joke! That touch about the scissors is really jocose,—for Miss Jane. Rose Red will shriek over the letter and that particularly rigid pincushion. They are both of them so exactly like her. Dear me! only one letter left. Who is that from, Katy? How fast one does eat up one’s pleasures!”

      “But you had a letter yourself. Surely papa said so. What was that? You haven’t read it to us.”

      “No, for it contains a secret which you are not to hear just yet,” replied Clover. “Brides mustn’t ask questions. Go on with yours.”

      “Mine is from Louisa Agnew,—quite a long one, too. It’s an age since we heard from her, you know.”

      Ashburn, April 24.

      Dear Katy,—Your delightful letter and invitation came day before yesterday, and thank you for both. There is nothing in the world that would please me better than to come to your wedding if it were possible, but it simply isn’t. If you lived in New Haven now, or even Boston,—but Burnet is so dreadfully far off, it seems as inaccessible as Kamchatka to a person who, like myself, has a house to keep and two babies to take care of.

      Don’t look so alarmed. The house is the same house you saw when you were here, and so is one of the babies; the other is a new acquisition just two years old, and as great a darling as Daisy was at the same age. My mother has been really better in health since he came, but just now she is at a sort of Rest Cure in Kentucky; and I have my hands full with papa and the children, as you can imagine, so I can’t go off two days’ journey to a wedding,—not even to yours, my dearest old Katy. I shall think about you all day long on the day, when I know which it is, and try to imagine just how everything looks; and yet I don’t find that quite easy, for somehow I fancy that your wedding will be a little different from the common run. You always were different from other people to me, you know,—you and Clover,—and I love you so much, and I always shall.

      Papa has taken a kit-kat portrait of me in oils,—and a blue dress,—which he thinks is like, and which I am going to send you as soon as it comes home from the framers. I hope you will like it a little for my sake. Dear Katy, I send so much love with it.

      I have only seen the Pages in the street since they came home from Europe; but the last piece of news here is Lilly’s engagement to Comte Ernest de Conflans. He has something to do with the French legation in Washington, I believe; and they crossed in the same steamer. I saw him driving with her the other day,—a little man, not handsome, and very dark. I do not know when they are to be married. Your Cousin Clarence is in Colorado.

      With two kisses apiece and a great hug for you, Katy, I am always

      Your affectionate friend,

       Louisa.

      “Dear me!” said the insatiable Clover, “is that the very last? I wish we had another mail, and twelve more letters coming in at once. What a blessed institution the post-office is!”