"My dearest Lucy,--
"Forgive my long delay in writing, but I have been simply overwhelmed
with work. The life of an assistant schoolmistress is sometimes trying.
I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together
freely and build our castles in the air. I have been working very hard
lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan's studies, and I have
been practising shorthand very assiduously. When we are married I shall
be able to be useful to Jonathan, and if I can stenograph well enough I
can take down what he wants to say in this way and write it out for
him on the typewriter, at which also I am practising very hard. He
and I sometimes write letters in shorthand, and he is keeping a
stenographic journal of his travels abroad. When I am with you I
shall keep a diary in the same way. I don't mean one of those
two-pages-to-the-week-with-Sunday-squeezed-in-a-corner diaries, but a
