letter?  Ah, Steven, it is what may be said of me; but, if cold and heartless to you, I have certainly given no man at this garrison the faintest reason to think that he has inspired any greater interest in him.  They are all kind, all very attentive.  I have told you how well Mr. Royce dances and Mr. Merton rides and Mr. Foster reads and talks.  They entertain me vastly, and I do like it.  More than this, Steven, I am pleased with their evident admiration,—­not alone pleased and proud that they should admire me who am pledged to you,—­not that alone, I frankly confess, but because it in itself is pleasant.  It pleases me.  Very possibly it is because I am vain.

“And yet, though my hours are constantly occupied, though they are here from morning till night, no one of them is more attentive than another.  There are five or six who come daily.  There are some who do not come at all.  Am I a wretch, Steven?  There are two or three that do not call who I wish would call.  I would like to know them.

“Yet they know—­they could not help it, with Kate here, and I never forget—­that I am your promised wife.  Steven, do you not sometimes forget the conditions of that promise?  Even now, again and again do I not repeat to you that you ought to release me and free yourself?  Of course your impulse will be to say my heart is changing,—­that I have seen others whom I like better.  No, I have seen no one I like as well.  But is ‘like’ what you deserve,—­what you ask? and is it not all I have ever been able to promise you?  Steven, bear me witness, for Kate is bitterly unjust to me at times, I told you again and again last summer and fall that I did not love you and ought not to think of being your wife.  Yet, poor, homeless, dependent as I am, how strong was the temptation to say yes to your plea!  You know that I did not and would not until time and again your sweet mother, whom I do love, and Kate, who had been a mother to me, both declared that that should make no difference:  the love would come:  the happiest marriages the world over were those in which the girl respected the man of her choice:  love would come, and come speedily, when once she was his wife.  You yourself declared you could wait in patience,—­you would woo and win by and by.  Only promise to be your wife before returning to the frontier, and you would be content.  Steven, are you content?  You know you are not:  you know you are unhappy; and it is all, not because I am growing to love some one else, but because I am not growing to love you.  Heaven knows I want to love you; for so long as you hold me to it my promise is sacred and shall be kept.  More than that, if you say that it is your will that I seclude myself from these attentions, give up dancing, give up rides, drives, walks, and even receiving visits, here, so be it.  I will obey.  But write this to me, Steven,—­not to Kate.  I am too proud to ask her to show me the letters I know she