"No, True; I am not going to take back my promise. What do you suppose I care for the few dollars you have lost? You are no less good and noble--no less capable than before; and as for the times, they will change--they always do. It almost hurts me to realize that you could think I would ever let you send me off even for what you considered my own good. And I will not go, you see. You can't send me away--unless, indeed, you do not want me any more, and then, of course, you will say so, and I will go. Forgive me, True; I do not mean that; but I must punish you the least bit because--because I am a woman, I suppose.
"And now, True, about this draft for a thousand dollars which I am sending back to you. It was right, of course, for you to hold it as you did when you felt that it could do no good, and it is better to have it now, when it will. I want you to have it cashed at once, and let Van and Perny have just whatever they need of it to tide them over, and I want you to help the Colonel, too, if you can find him. Then you are to take the rest of it, and, after using whatever you need for yourself, go out and find the smallest and cheapest little apartment in New York that we can live in. Furnish it with the fewest things you can buy, and if there is any money left, we will take a wedding trip on it just as far as it will take us. Then we will come back to our little apartment, you will go back to your beloved art, and we will start really as Mr. Frisby did this time--without a dollar! I have no preparation to make. Let me know when you are coming and I will be ready.
"And now, True, good-by, with the happiest of New Years for you and your good friends, who will, I am sure, be my good friends, too, though I take you away from them in part. I wonder if it would be right for me to say I am glad we failed? I am afraid that, even if it is wrong, it is the truth. I _know_ it is! There are many things that we could do with wealth, but there are so many things so much sweeter that we might not have; and oh, dear True, I am only a woman, and selfish, after all.
"P.S. I almost forgot to thank you for the autograph volume. You could not have pleased me more.
Livingstone did not read quite all the letter. There were lines and paragraphs here and there that he entered, stumbled, and backed out of--taking at last a road around that was so evidently his own as to make Perner remark once:
