You, I imagine from your letters (what a faithful correspondent you have been, Biddy, all your wandering life), are still finding zest in it: mine has palled.

You will jump naturally to the brotherly conclusion that _I_ have palled--that I cease to amuse, that I find myself taking a second or even a third place, I who was always first; that, in short, I am a soured and disappointed woman.
"Honestly, I don't think that is so.

I am still beautiful: I am more sympathetic than in my somewhat callous youth, therefore more popular: I am good company: I have the influence that money carries with it, and I could even now make what is known as a 'brilliant' marriage.

Did you ever wonder--everybody else did, I know--why I never married?
Simply, my dear, because the only man I cared for didn't ask me ...

and now I am forty.