A Rich Full Death

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You will no doubt be surprised to receive another letter so soon, but I have news which cannot await my monthly packet. Prepare yourself for a shock, for I have sad and dramatic tidings: Isabel Eakin, nee Allen, is no more, having passed away yesterday evening under tragic circumstances-of which more in a moment. What a piece of my life-of both our lives-falls into oblivion with her! Death must always diminish the survivors, but when I consider how intimate a part of my life Isabel once was, I feel half-dead myself at the thought of all she has taken with her to the grave.

How vividly I recall those long summer afternoons we spent together-you and I and she, and that freckly cousin whose name and face and indeed everything except her freckles I presently forget. Is it really fifteen years ago? Mighty fine young fellows we thought ourselves then, as I remember; with the bloom of college still fresh on us, like hothouse peaches. I forget exactly how or when we discovered that there were mysteries of which our professors had said nothing (and perhaps had nothing to say), such as the miraculous transformation of scrawny little Isabel-previously the butt of much boyish torment on my part-into a fascinating and powerful figure with capacities of her own for inflicting torment.

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