“Every evening I go there to fetch my milk. Yesterday she gave me some coffee. The spoon fell on the ground. She picked it up; when she gave it me her finger touched mine. Jemima, I do not know if I fancied it--I shivered hot, and she shivered too! I thought, ‘It is all right; she will be mine; she loves me!’ Just then, Jemima, in came a fellow, a great, coarse fellow, a German--a ridiculous fellow, with curls right down to his shoulders; it makes one sick to look at him. He’s only a servant of the Boer-woman’s, and a low, vulgar, uneducated thing; that’s never been to boarding-school in his life. He had been to the next farm seeking sheep. When he came in she said, ‘Good evening, Waldo. Have some coffee!’ AND SHE KISSED HIM.
“All last night I heard nothing else but ‘Have some coffee; have some coffee.’ If I went to sleep for a moment I dreamed that her finger was pressing mine; but when I woke with a start I heard her say, ‘Good evening, Waldo. Have some coffee!’
“I have not eaten a mouthful today. This evening I go and propose to her. If she refuses me I shall go and kill myself tomorrow. There is a dam of water close by. The sheep have drunk most of it up, but there is still enough if I tie a stone to my neck.
“It is a choice between death and madness. I can endure no more. If this should be the last letter you ever get from me, think of me tenderly, and forgive me. Without her, life would be a howling wilderness, a long tribulation. She is my affinity; the one love of my life, of my youth, of my manhood; my sunshine; my God-given blossom.
“‘They never loved who dreamed that they loved once, And who saith, ‘I loved once’?-- Not angels, whose deep eyes look down through realms of light!’
“Your disconsolate brother, on what is, in all probability, the last and distracted night of his life.
“P.S.--Tell mother to take care of my pearl studs. I left them in the wash-hand-stand drawer. Don’t let the children get hold of them.
“P.P.S.--I shall take this letter with me to the farm. If I turn down one corner you may know I have been accepted; if not, you may know it is all up with your heartbroken brother,
Gregory having finished this letter, read it over with much approval, put it in an envelope, addressed it, and sat contemplating the inkpot, somewhat relieved in mind.