times to take me, but there's one thing that has more influence with him than I have, and that is his old business. I'm so glad that girls don't have to have business. At least, some of them do, and it's splendid of them, and I admire them awfully, but I never could.
"But to go back to Daddy and business: I know that if I wait for him I'll be gray-haired and deaf and everything I eat will disagree with me, and I'll have to live on hot water and tablets, like old Mrs. Beedy. I don't know whether you remember Mrs. Beedy, it's so long since you've been here. It doesn't make any difference—you know the kind.
"Now, Cousin Persis, if I've been too bold, just tell me so, and it will be a splendid lesson for me, and I'll never ask anybody to invite me anywhere again as long as I live. But if I could come, you know if you didn't like me you could send me right back. How would it do—if you consider it at all, of course, I mean—for me to come three days on approval, the way they send books and ice-cream freezers and things? I'd tell you about myself beforehand if I knew what to tell. I'm not so red-headed as I used to be; I think maybe I'm not quite so red-headed inside either. It worried Daddy so that I really tried hard. But I'm afraid that I'm not very proper. I mean that I like to sit on the floor and go without gloves, and things like that. But, of course, if you didn't like it I'd try to remember about chairs. I know that I'd have a perfectly lovely time—I always do everywhere. It's you that I'm anxious about—if you should let me come. However, I couldn't bother you very much in three days—do you think so? In three days, when I was trying all the time to be good?
"There, I'm not going to chatter any more. I shall feel sort of—well, queer and excited—the way you do when you send a story to an editor (I did it once, so I know—that's one of the things I don't do any more)—till I hear from you. And I'm going to send this out to be mailed the moment I finish it, because I know if I kept it I should not have the courage to. But this I want to say last of all because it is the most important—it won't make the least difference if you don't want me to come. I mean, I'll be sorry, of course, but I shall know that I had no business to ask, and so, maybe, my conscience will feel better than if you let me come.
That's the letter. What am I going to do about it?
I dreamt of Ethelwyn a dozen times last night. Must I tell her that she can come? If she were anyone but Cousin Tom's daughter
I have an inspiration—I'll invite her to come—next winter! She'll enjoy Washington twice as much when Congress is in session—Congress
