Now, if you have not already thrown this down in a rage--I judge you to be a woman of the most fiendish temper!--let me be sensible for just one moment. I am recovering slowly from a long illness and am as harmless as a dove. I have, honestly, some work for a typewriter to do, and my physician has advised me to take one. The young lady who has agreed to go is not the sort you seem to imagine. She has consented only after the most distressing stipulations in regard to my conduct--all of which were entirely unnecessary, by the way. I am to file a bond to return her to New York by May 1st in absolutely perfect condition. Come and dine with me, Alice dear, and have your doubts removed. I won't bite you, nor offer the slightest familiarity, upon my word! Name your hotel and, provided it is of undoubted respectability, I will meet you there at any hour you choose, after 6 P.M., or I will send a carriage for you. I only wish I could bring 'Marjorie'--isn't it a perfectly sweet name! One sight of her soulful eyes would say more than all my protestations. Unhappily she is out of town, and I am afraid she wouldn't like to be exhibited, if she were here. You'd best come. Yours Fraternally, D. CAMWELL. The Lambs, Dec. 31, 1897. It didn't seem too funny, when I read it over, as I thought it would, but I sent it to East Sixteenth Street by a messenger that I summoned, telling him to bring an answer, if there was any, and to return for his pay, if there was none. He came back in half an hour, saying that a boy at the house took the letter up stairs, presumably to Miss B., and returned in a few minutes stating that she would reply by mail. As this exhausted all the fun I could expect out of that matter for the day, I went over to the Club and lounged away the afternoon. It was nine o'clock and I had only been at home for a few minutes when a note came from Statia Barton. It was written in a very cool strain, but its contents were unexpectedly agreeable, for all that. Statia said she was afraid she had been a little too severe, and that, as it distressed Tom very much to have a general falling out, she had made it up with him. She had nothing to take back in what she had said relating to a certain matter, (what woman ever took back anything?) but was willing to admit that it was, really, my personal affair and that she had no right to control my conduct. She believed it best, on the whole, that we should see each other as little as possible before I went away, but she did not wish, on reflection, to make trouble between her brother and his friend. If Tom wanted me to come to spend an evening with him, she hoped I would do it, and she promised to keep out of my way.