Mail Order Bride Leah: A Sweet Western Historical Romance (Montana Mail Order Brides Series Book 1) Read Free Page A

pennies for the missionary collection.
    Leah composed herself, reread the letter, and set to pen a reply.
    Dear Henry,
    Now that we are introduced by your letter, I may call you that. I received your response in my hands less than an hour ago and here I sit, replying already. I confess that everything you say gives me the utmost hope that we might suit one another well.
    I do not ride and I confess a bit of a fear of horses. They are so very large and I am small. I will trust you to teach me to ride if ever we meet.
    I have read some Goethe. My favorite is the sonnets of Mr. Shakespeare, but it may shock you to know that one of my most precious possessions is my mother’s copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. She persuaded my father to buy it for her when it the 1867 edition came out, and years later, as she lay dying, she had me read it out to her again.  That is how I became acquainted with his very powerful and natural poetry. Much of it is shocking, of course, but you must permit at least my sentimental attachment to the volume.
    Of our contemporary writers, I like the works of Robert Browning and I have read a bit of Longfellow. The novels of Sir Walter Scott were the solace of my youth and I have read Gulliver’s Travels every spring since my eleventh birthday. It seems such a springlike novel, so perfect for new beginnings. Now that is fanciful, though if I can forgive your odd jokes, I suppose you might forgive my odd fancies in kind.
    I have never seen the mountains and I find myself dreaming of them now, though Montana must be as a foreign land to a girl bred in the bustle and stir of the city. Did you find it very different when you moved from Philadelphia?
    You wrote that your own father is an orchestral conductor. How fascinating! Did you have opportunity to hear many symphonies and concertos as a child? I went once to the opera as a birthday treat and saw a performance of “Lohengrin,” which I mention because it was, I have read, first staged by Liszt in Weimar, Germany as an honor to Goethe whom you referenced. I found the production to be grand and otherworldly and the Bridal Chorus was very moving indeed. My mother taught me some piano when I was a child and I learned a bit of Beethoven. I could pick out a fair “Für Elise” and a few hymns before she was too ill to teach me any longer.
    My dear mother succumbed to consumption when I was a girl but I am quite healthy myself. Her loss has been the great sadness in my otherwise fortunate life. My father kept a stationery shop and I went to school until my mother’s illness made her unable to keep the house. At that time, my father brought over an Irish girl to clean and cook for us and I cared for my mother, eventually withdrawing from school until after her passing to tend her. She liked to be read to and I became acquainted with Evelina and the novels of Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen in this way.
    Books were our retreat together, a happy place inhabited by us two and free from worry and sickness. It is for this reason that I escape in a story when I am overcome by real life. A student of mine has given me considerable worry and has stopped attending class. Instead of fretting over it or even (Lord forgive me) praying for him, I am reading Dickens, which is like an old friend to me now. I may live in a busy city but I have no more confidantes, no more like-minded friends than you have in the wilds of Montana.
    Forgive my long letter. It is easier for me to write than to talk, although I am perfectly happy to converse with those who know me. Are you—is it forward to ask how many other ladies have answered your advertisement and with how many others you correspond? I do not ask for gossip’s sake, only to know what I may reasonably hope. If you have many correspondents, I mustn’t expect a letter very often, whereas if only a few of us are writing you, I might look in the post every few weeks with the promise of a new letter.
    With answering