I long for you so that the
very faults of your life are dear to me, even those for which I most
reprove you when you are near.
Let me see: it is past midday with you; you and your mother are out
walking. I hear you both.
"Constance," says Mrs. Rayner, "put up your parasol!"
"Thanks, mother," you reply; "I like to feel the sun."
"You'll freckle."
"Through this thick veil and all the powder?"
"You'll freckle, I tell you. Put up your parasol."
"Oh, mother, do let me be!"
Here Mrs. Rayner wrenches the parasol out of your hands and puts it
up with a jerk; you take it, heaving a very loud sigh, upon which
your mother seizes it again and pops it down.
"Very well, be as freckled as you please; what does it matter to me,
after all? It's so pretty to have freckles, isn't it? Please
yourself! Only I warn you that you'll look like a fig before the
year's out!"
Oh, dear me, it seems I'm in good spirits to-day! Why not, with your
letter in my pocket? I am sitting out of doors in the woods. I love
this place, apart from its own beauty; I like to think of my father
out here in the open, dreaming his young dreams.
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