Last Christmas in Paris

by Hazel Gaynor

I feel for the necklace in my pocket, and remember how she loved to quote Miss Brontë’s words. I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.

She always said her war was fought in words; her pen and prose the only weapons she, as a woman, could wield.

“Never seek to tell thy love, Love that never told can be; For the gentle wind does move, Silently, invisibly.”

Letters make one uncommonly honest, don’t you think? I’ve told you things in words that I would have been far too shy or distracted to tell you in person.

“I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.” —Elizabeth Barrett Browning