Letter III

And so for the books more thanks and more,--that they are what I would
most wish, and not anything else: which, had they been, they would still
have given me pleasure, since from you they could come only with a good
meaning: and--diamonds even--I could have put up with them!

To-morrow you come for your ring, and bring me my own? Yours is here
waiting. I have it on my finger, very loose, with another standing
sentry over it to keep it from running away.

A mouse came out of my wainscot last night, and plunged me in horrible
dilemma: for I am equally idiotic over the idea of the creature trapped
or free, and I saw sleepless nights ahead of me till I had secured a
change of locality for him.

To startle him back into hiding would have only deferred my getting
truly rid of him, so I was most tiptoe and diplomatic in my doings.
Finally, a paper bag, put into a likely nook with some sentimentally
preserved wedding-cake crumbled into it, crackled to me of his arrival.
In a brave moment I noosed the little beast, bag and all, and lowered
him from the window by string, till the shrubs took from me the burden
of responsibility.

I visited the bag this morning: he had eaten his way out, crumbs and
all: and has, I suppose, become a fieldmouse, for the hay smells
invitingly, and it is only a short run over the lawn and a jump over the
ha-ha to be in it. Poor morsels, I prefer them so much undomesticated!