Laura was miffed at having to play Audrey, but we didn’t know that she could come until the last moment, and we were going to leave that part out. ‘I don’t believe you appreciate my generosity in taking this thankless part,’ she said to Bell, when we were rehearsing. ‘Nobody would ever catch you playing second fiddle, my dear. All leading parts reserved for Miss Winship, by order of the authors, I suppose.’ ‘Indeed, Laura,’ Bell said, ‘if we had known you were coming we would have offered you the best part, but I only took Rosalind because I knew the lines, and the girls insisted.’ ‘You’ve trained the girls well—hasn’t she, Geoffrey?’ asked Laura, with a queer kind of laugh. But I will leave the unpleasant subject. I should not have spoken of it at all except that she has made me so uncomfortable to-day that it is fresh in my mind. Bell and Polly and I have talked the matter all over, and are going to try and make her like us, whether she wants to or not. We have agreed to be just as polite and generous as we possibly can, and see if she won’t ‘come round,’ for she is perfectly delighted with the camp, and wants to stay a month. Polly says she is going to sing ‘Home Sweet Home’ to her every night, and drop double doses of the homoeopathic cure for home-sickness into her tea, with a view of creating the disease. Good-bye, and a hundred kisses from your loving MARGERY DAW. V. THE CAMP POETESS ADDS HER STORE OF MENTAL RICHES TO THE GENERAL FUND. MY DARLING,—I have a thousand things to tell you, but I cannot possibly say them in rhyme, merely because the committee insists upon it. I send you herewith all the poetry which has been written in camp since last Monday, and it has been a very prosy week. I have given them to papa, and he says that the best of my own, which are all bad enough, is the following hammock-song. I thought it out while I was swinging Margery, and here it is!— To—fro, Dreamily, slow, Under the trees; Swing—swing, Drowsily sing The birds and the bees; Sleep—rest, Slumber is best, Wakefulness sad; Rest—sleep, Forget how to weep, Dream and be glad! Papa says it is all nonsense to say that slumber is best and wakefulness sad; and that it is possible to tell the truth in poetry. Perhaps it is, but why don’t they do it oftener, then? And how was he to know that Polly and Jack had just gone through a terrible battle of words in which I was peacemaker, and that Dicky had been as naughty as—Nero—all day? These two circumstances made me look at the world through blue glasses, and that is always the time one longs to write poetry. I send you also Geoff’s verses, written to mamma, and slipped into the box when we were playing Machine Poetry:— I know a woman fair and calm, Whose shining tender eyes Make, when I meet their earnest gaze, Sweet thoughts within me rise.