The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-05-15
The Romantic and BeantifuI-
BY II. H. HARPER

closing in the spontaneous love
letter of Feb. %, have given place
to My Dear Mrs. Winter" and
Very faithfully yours"
And true to his promise he tells
her-in order to forestall any
suspicious in others who might
read it-that Catherine CHS wife)
would see her, etc. 1t is a cordial,
harmless little missive, quite a
platonic affair, compared to the
one two days previous, "all to
herself" The Deceptive Letter
Tavistock House,
Saturday, Twenty-fourth,
February, 1855.
Ny Dear Mrs. Winter:
l have had fearful suspicious on
my way home from Paris, that
those little bits of velvet which
are worn around the neck ought to
fasten with a sort of clasp; but
the disinterested merchant with
whom 1 executed your commission,
assured me that the little orna-
ments 1 inclose were the right
things, and would adjust such bits
of velvet, "Of a manner very raw
ishing." He was so rapturous in
the expression tranSlate-so
excessively voluble on the subject,
and SO injured in his honor by
my harboring the least doubt, that
meekly submitted to him.
n
TN her letters Maria had very
Il adroitly succeeded in setting
all things right" by her earnest
words, so courageously, so deli
cately and gently expressed; she
had established "a confidence,
which still once more" was to be
between themselves alone. Dick
ems had written her from Paris
that her handwriting had mot in
the least changed"
Perhaps that's why it never oc-
Cured to him that she had
changed. She must have warmed
up considerably in at least one of
her letters for he answered-"If
you had ever told me then what
you tell me now the simple
truth and energy which we're in
my love would have overcome
everything All this mist
passes away upon your earnest
words" Which shows that she
was then as ingenious in clearing
up mist as she had been in
spreading gloom over his boyhood
hopes.
1t will be seen that letters re-
ceived at Dickens home were not
under the restraint of domestic
censorship-for he assured Mrs.
Winter that he could be nowhere
addressed with stricter privacy
than at his own house. The ex-
emption, however, seems not to
have included this feminine caller,
since he took the precaution to
suggest that she ask first for Mrs.
Dickens, who with all the house
hold-excepting only himself
was sure to be out at the time
appointed.
We can easily picture the effect
of all this on the feverishly eX-
pectant Maria, who was going to
meet, secretly and intimately, the
devout lover of her girlhood days,
who had given her every reason to
believe that he was now more suS-
centihIe than ever
NTHAT could she do to eX-
w erciSe the old charm? What
would he expect? Could she en-
chant him once more? We do not
think of four and forty as old
nowadays, and it would not be
strange if Maria had retained
some of her old fascination; in
deed she probably wrote him that
she was "toothless, fat, old and
ugly" with a view to giving him a
happy surprise.
But with all the youthful at
fractions she could possibly have
retained, it would have been diff
f1cult to fulfill the expectations
of a man who visualized her only
as the beautiful young creature
who was always the same" in his
remembrance - the idol of his