Your loving cousin, Maude

IV. Augustus to Lady Maude

Wight, 8 June

My dear Maude, Your two letters arrived together by this morning's post. I do assure you, dearest cousin, that you would never write as you do were you ever to fall truly in love. Such is my case. To you the girl upon whom all my hope is fixed appears no more than a shopkeeper's hireling. How mistaken you are, for you do not know her as I do. She does not haunt your waking dreams as she does mine. Not an hour of the day passes but I see in that mind's eye the slim elfin figure with her blond hair and moody little face-and I breathe the name of Julie. I do not doubt, my dearest, that you would take my family's part against me.

Would you not revert to the topic of my neurasthenia and suggest that I am not fit to control my life in such matters? As soon as your letters arrived, I went into town to search out my beloved image-to whom I had never addressed a single word. How my heart sprang up as I saw her at her work, just as you promised. With far more decency and devotion than the Italian lad in your letter, I gazed through the glass upon the beauty which is all the world to me. She was modestly attired in black dress and coquettish little red shoes. Yet as she stood behind the counter that fine blond hair was spread loose like a veil upon her shoulders. All the primness and knowing-ness of her previous appearance was changed to simple innocence by this alteration. What is the worst one can say of Julie? She has, perhaps, an indifferent and unsmiling air for her customers. Yet I must be more to her than they.