My dearest Mina,

My dear, it never rains but it pours. The old proverbs really are true. Here am I, who will be twenty in September. Yet I never had a proposal till to-day, not a real proposal. Now today I have had three. Just imagine! Three proposals in one day! Isn't it amazing! I feel sorry, really and truly sorry, for two of the poor fellows. Oh, Mina, I am so happy that I don't know what to do with myself. And three proposals! But, please, please, don't tell any of the girls. Otherwise they will get all sorts of silly ideas. They will feel hurt and insulted if in their very first day at home they did not get at least six. Some girls are so vain!

You and I, Mina dear, are engaged. Soon we are going to settle down soberly and become old married women. So we can despise vanity. Well, I must tell you about the three, but you must keep it a secret from everyone. Except, of course from Jonathan. You will tell him, because if I were in your place I would certainly tell Arthur. A woman ought to tell her husband everything, don't you think? And I must be fair. Men like women, certainly their wives, to be quite as fair as they are. And women, I am afraid, are not always quite as fair as they should be.