dear daddy-long-legs,

back at college again and an upper classman. our study is better

than ever this year--faces the south with two huge windows and oh!

so furnished. julia, with an unlimited allowance, arrived two days

early and was attacked with a fever for settling.

we have new wall paper and oriental rugs and mahogany chairs--

not painted mahogany which made us sufficiently happy last year,

but real. it's very gorgeous, but i don't feel as though i belonged

in it; i'm nervous all the time for fear i'll get an ink spot in the

wrong place.

and, daddy, i found your letter waiting for me--pardon--i mean

your secretary's.

will you kindly convey to me a comprehensible reason why i should

not accept that scholarship? i don't understand your objection

in the least. but anyway, it won't do the slightest good for you

to object, for i've already accepted it and i am not going to change!

that sounds a little impertinent, but i don't mean it so.

i suppose you feel that when you set out to educate me, you'd like to

finish the work, and put a neat period, in the shape of a diploma,

at the end.

but look at it just a second from my point of view. i shall owe my

education to you just as much as though i let you pay for the whole of it,

but i won't be quite so much indebted. i know that you don't want me

to return the money, but nevertheless, i am going to want to do it,

if i possibly can; and winning this scholarship makes it so much easier.

i was expecting to spend the rest of my life in paying my debts,

but now i shall only have to spend one-half of the rest of it.

i hope you understand my position and won't be cross. the allowance

i shall still most gratefully accept. it requires an allowance

to live up to julia and her furniture! i wish that she had been

reared to simpler tastes, or else that she were not my room-mate.

this isn't much of a letter; i meant to have written a lot--but i've

been hemming four window curtains and three portieres (i'm glad you

can't see the length of the stitches), and polishing a brass desk

set with tooth powder (very uphill work), and sawing off picture

wire with manicure scissors, and unpacking four boxes of books,

and putting away two trunkfuls of clothes (it doesn't seem believable

that jerusha abbott owns two trunks full of clothes, but she does!)

and welcoming back fifty dear friends in between.

opening day is a joyous occasion!

good night, daddy dear, and don't be annoyed because your

chick is wanting to scratch for herself. she's growing up

into an awfully energetic little hen--with a very determined

cluck and lots of beautiful feathers (all due to you).

affectionately,

judy