The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-04-26
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 s.You are my queen tonightr' 1 cried earnestly.
 She let me raise her fingers to my lips and looked down at me in a sad, sweet way. Then, laughing softly and somehow. I felt, a little bitterly, she said:
 "Your queen of tonight will be your cook again tomorrow"
 Before I could reach her side, for my impulse was to throw myself at her feet and pour out my love to her, she glided swiftly up the stairs.
 Within the next week l received a copy of the paper with my letter in 1t, prominently placed on the first page, and a note in the same mail from the editor congratulating me on the excel lence of it. He told me to send one or two more from Georgia and then to push on and write up the-bayou coun- ties in Louisiana. He liked the dia- Iogues and suggested that give more interviews with the farmers I read my letter in print, and it again struck me that I had not made it clear to my conservative readers that it was to the sons of the antebellum, slaveholding families that the south had to look for
  ity; that it was this element which was rebuilding the fortunes in that section and not the few men from the north who had gone there to invest money. If I dared to draw a picture of the Buds and the EllenS of the south how the people of the old com monweaIth would read the future of this sunny land and appreciate the struggle of its younger generation to overcome the obstacles which they had Inherited in consequence of war! 3, A fine sense of honor had kept me from making use of the life at the Pines as a basis for a letter, but I longed to handle the subject as I saw 1t and to make others see it through my eyes and appreciate its beauty. Shut in my room away from the 'inf1u- ence of Miss Ellen, of Bud and even of the colonel, I argued that such a letter could do no harm and might in duce to much good. do not hide from myself even now that there was with me a certain satisfaction in pleasing those in the home office, nor did con ceaI from myself then the additional prestige such a letter might give me with my critics. The editor had com plimented me on the first letter. What would he not do when he received one written with pen guided by love and every word of it poured from the heart? If Miss Ellen loved me, I ar gued, she would only rejoice with me over my success. And then, too, she might not see it. This last thought brought a blush to my cheek, and I started up determined to show her my letter and tell her what contem- plated doing.
 What evil genius led me to change my mind I do not know. It might have been the fates of the wishing stone whom had angered by partial ly revealing the secret had confded to them. But at the time I was pleased to think it was a confidence I had no right to give her until I had told her of my love. Then, too, if I, who was as jealous of the family honor as Bud or even the colonel himself, saw no tmpropriety in making use of their heroic struggle with misfortunes, sure ly there could be none, 1 thought When I should have told her of my love, together we would talk over these hard times, and together we would read my description of them and laugh over it, or possibly cry, for it was al- ways the pathos of the life at the Pines which I saw and not the humor. When a woman loves she always un- derstands, I said to myself, but did not know then how sensitive these old families had become O. criticism nor how deeply they felt Sheir changed conditions. I had only seen their forti- tude and bravery, for they would have thought it beneath them to complain of their poverty to others.
 Unless I wrote some such letter, which would afford me a reasonable excuse for remaining another fortnight nt the Pines, would have to leave in a day or two at the longest, for the sug- Eestion of the mana gtng edits- was nothing less than politely worded or der. .-t
 Cabling myself into this belief I hesitated no longer. My mind once made up, I was seized with fever to write such as I had not known since the first days of my career in journal ism.
 Taking out my writing pad and throwing myself across the bed, I wrote with an enthusiasm I had sel- dom experienced. If one has not felt