To think that you should have got that perfection of a girl,
who has declined so many great catches--YOU, my sober, business-
like, unromantic big brother--oh, it's too wonderful! But now I
think of it, you're just the people for each other. I'd like to
say that it's just what I'd always longed for, and that I invited
you to Hillcrest to bring it about; but the trouble with such a
story would be that it wouldn't have a word of truth in it. You
always DID have a faculty of doing just what you pleased, and what
nobody ever expected you to do, but now you've exceeded yourself.
"And to think that my little darlings played an important part in
bringing it all about! I shall take the credit for THAT, for if it
hadn't been for me, who would have helped you, sir? I shall expect
you to remember both of them handsomely at Christmas.
"I don't believe I'm guilty of a breach of confidence in sending
the enclosed, which I have just received from my sister-in-law
that is to be. It will tell you some causes of your success of
which you, with a man's conceit, haven't imagined for a minute,
and it will tell you, too, of a maiden's first and natural fear
under such circumstances,--a fear which I know that you, with your
honest, generous heart, will hasten to dispel. As you're a man,
you're quite likely to be too stupid to read what's written
between the lines; so I'd better tell you that Alice's fear is
that in letting herself go so easily she may have seemed to lack
proper reserve and self-respect.
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