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My Dearest Lucy

"I'm sorry it has been so long since I last wrote. I have simply had too much work to do. The life of an assistant school-teacher can sometimes be hard. I am really looking forward to seeing you. When we are by the sea we can talk and daydream. I have been working a lot lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan's studies, and I have been practising shorthand too. When we are married this will be be useful to Jonathan because if I can do shorthand well I can take down what he wants to say and afterwards write it out on the typewriter. I am also practising very hard at using a typewriter.

Jonathan and I sometimes write letters to each other in shorthand. He writes things about his travels abroad. When I am with you I shall write too. I don't mean one of those two-pages-in-a-week-with-Sunday-squeezed-in-a-corner diaries. It will be a journal which I can write in whenever I want to. I do not suppose there will be much to interest other people; butI'm not writing for them. Some day I may show it to Jonathan if there is in it anything worth sharing. Bbut it is really an exercise book for me to practise in. I shall try to do what I see lady journalists do. They interview people and write descriptions and remember conversations.

I am told that, if you practise you can remember everything that happened or was said during a day. We shall see. I will tell you of my little plans when we meet. I have just had a few quick lines from Jonathan from Transylvania. He is well, and will be returning in about a week. I am looking forward to hearing all his news. It must be so nice to see strange countries. I wonder if we — I mean Jonathan and I — shall ever see these countries together. Now I hear the ten o'clock bell. Good-bye.

Your loving

Mina

Tell me all you news when you write. You have not written for a long time. I hear stories that you have been seen with a tall, handsome, curly-haired man?"

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