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NEW YORK, March 3, 1895.

MY DEAR MIRIAM,—Your letter is simply absurd. You say you “don’t believe in that Miss Stanwood,” and you want me to promise never to speak to her again. Now you can’t mean that. It is too ridiculous. I confess you puzzle me more and more. I don’t pretend to understand women, but you go beyond anything I ever heard of. What you ask is unworthy of you; it’s unworthy of me. It’s more—it’s unchristian.

But I’ll do what I can to please you. Since you have taken such a violent dislike to Miss Stanwood, I’ll agree not to go to her house again—although that will be very awkward if Mr. Stanwood asks me, won’t it? However, I suppose I can trump up some excuse. I’ll agree not to go to her house, I say; but of course, I’ve got to be polite to her when I meet her in the Sunday-school—that is, unless you want me to give up the Sunday-school, too! And I’ve got to help in the show for the boys and girls. To give up now after I’ve said I would, that would make me feel as mean as pusley. Besides, that show is going to attract a great deal of attention. All the prominent people in the church are going to come to it—people you don’t know, of course, but high-steppers, all of them. It wouldn’t really be fair to back out now.

Now that’s what I’ll do. I’ll meet you half-way. Since you seem to have taken such a violent dislike to Miss Stanwood, for no reason at all that I can see—excepting jealousy, and that’s out of the question, of course—but since you don’t like her, I’ll agree not to go to her house again. But I must go on with the photographs, and I can’t help passing the time of day when I meet her on Sunday in the library.

Will that satisfy you?

JACK.