Dear Bob,
Before I begin, I'd like to ask you to return at your earliest convenience the original of my letter to P. I want to see what I wrote before I write her again. I am enclosing the letter which she sent me in return. I shall now make observations on the answer she sent me.
First of all, it was sent me in an IC envelope, and as you can see, it is written on stenographer's paper. She uses "sincerely" at the conclusion and uses her full name.
This would indicate to me that she didn't put much thought into the letter, and her formal ending indicates that our relationship is just that - - formal. Of course, I also used my full name in my letter, but I was afraid she wouldn't remember my last name and be able to send her answer.
Also note the capital letter in "Stranger", as if I were the one stranger in her life.
The whole theme of her letter rather surprises me. Her answer might lead someone to believe that I had written a nice little hello note to her.
I expected her to write an answer that was either warmly passionate or painfully sarcastic. I find this one neither. It seems too innocent. There's still a chance that she is smarter than either of us thinks. Certainly the second paragraph of her letter should have resulted in the lowering of my defenses. I'm afraid that now I am the one who can't quite figure out her tactics. This should be quite an interesting summer, and I'm sort of glad our Brussels deal didn't materialize.
I would also appreciate it if you returned the enclosed letter, but there's no hurry. I'm not going to write her until I get the letter back, and I think my strategy calls for my leaving her hanging by her thumbs for a while. This has seemed to work all right in the past.
I'm glad your interest in MM has been revived, I always maintained that she has the cutest face I've ever seen. I feel I must warn you, however, that H has designs on her, and I'm sure unethical as he is, he won't hesitate to take advantage of his geographical proximity to her.
I've written S another letter. So far, she's accepted my invitation to go to the Dartmouth Glee Club Concert this spring. I made the letter fairly "snowy" and I'm anxiously awaiting her answer.
Events here at school have been much less interesting and intriguing. I got a 3.8 (on the 5-point system) last semester. This semester will be very difficult, and I'm worried about flunking out.
Winter Carnival came off last weekend, and I had a pretty wild time with the sister of one of my brothers. I'm afraid that's the last girl I'll see until spring vacation.
Potpourri:
Who said our habits are conservative?
Prediction.: H won't leave his books to take out MM.
Tom
