文档介绍：DEAR ENEMY
DEAR ENEMY
By Jean Webster
1
DEAR ENEMY
STONE GATE, WORCESTER,
MASSACHUSETTS,
December 27. Dear
Judy:
Your letter is here. I have read it twice, and with amazement. Do I
understand that Jervis has given you, for a Christmas present, the making
over of the John Grier Home into a model institution, and that you have
chosen me to disburse the money? Me--I, Sallie McBride, the head of an
orphan asylum! My poor people, have you lost your senses, or have you
e addicted to the use of opium, and is this the raving of two fevered
imaginations? I am exactly as well fitted to take care of one hundred
children as to e the curator of a zoo.
And you offer as bait an interesting Scotch doctor? My dear Judy,--
likewise my dear Jervis,--I see through you! I know exactly the kind of
family conference that has been held about the Pendleton fireside.
"Isn't it a pity that Sallie hasn't amounted to more since she left college?
She ought to be doing something useful instead of frittering her time away
in the petty social life of Worcester. Also [Jervis speaks] she is getting
interested in that confounded young Hallock, too good-looking and
fascinating and erratic; I never did like politicians. We must deflect her
mind with some uplifting and absorbing occupation until the danger is past.
Ha! I have it! We will put her in charge of the John Grier Home." Oh,
I can hear him as clearly as if I were there! On the occasion of my last
visit in your delectable household Jervis and I had a very solemn
conversation in regard to (1) marriage, (2) the low ideals of politicians, (3)
the frivolous, useless lives that society women lead. Please tell your
moral husband that I took his words deeply to heart, and that ever since
my return to Worcester I have been spending one afternoon a week
reading poetry with the inmates of the Female Inebriate Asylum. My life
is not so purposeless as it appears.
Also let me assure you that the politician is not da