CHAPTER 5.
LETTER FROM MISS MINA MURRAY TO MISS LUCY WESTENRA.
9 May.
My dearest Lucy, Forgive my long delay in writing, but I have been simply overwhelmed with work.

The life of an assistant schoolmistress is sometimes trying.

I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air.

I have been working very hard lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan's studies, and I have been practicing shorthand very assiduously.
When we are married I shall be able to be useful to Jonathan, and if I can stenograph well enough I can take down what he wants to say in this way and write it out for him on the typewriter, at which also I am practicing very hard.
He and I sometimes write letters in shorthand, and he is keeping a stenographic journal of his travels abroad.

When I am with you I shall keep a diary in the same way.