Letters From a Little Girl

Neeland had several letters from Ruhannah Carew that autumn and
winter. The first one was written a few weeks after her arrival in
Paris:

* * * * *

Dear Mr. Neeland: Please forgive me for writing to you, but I am homesick.

I have written every week to mother and have made my letters read as
though I were still married, because it would almost kill her if she
knew the truth.

Some day I shall have to tell her, but not yet. Could you tell me how
you think the news ought to be broken to her and father?

That man was not on the steamer. I was quite ill crossing the ocean.
But the last two days I went on deck with the Princess Mistchenka and
her maid, and I enjoyed the sea.

The Princess has been so friendly. I should have died, I think,
without her, what with my seasickness and homesickness, and brooding
over my terrible fall. I know it is immoral to say so, but I did not
want to live any longer, truly I didn't. I even asked to be taken. I
am sorry now that I prayed that way.

Well, I have passed through the most awful part of my life, I think. I
feel strange and different, as though I had been very sick, and had
died, and as though it were another girl sitting here writing to you,
and not the girl who was in your studio last August.