DEAR MR GRAY: For the last two weeks I have been deferring writing to you, hoping from day to day that I would be able to announce our removal into the new house, but it seems as though the Fates are conspired against us. First it was one thing to delay our removal, then it was another, and finally everything. Here it is the first of the month, and we are still in our rented quarters. We intended to begin moving yesterday, and up to the very last moment on Saturday hoped to be able to do so, but the painters, and carpenters, and the plumbers combined against us, and we are in the spot where you saw us when last in Chicago. From this beginning you will gather that the new house is in rather a sad plight. It is not altogether so. The paper-hangers and painters are nearly through with the second-story, and have done considerable work down-stairs. I suppose that if everything was ready for them they could get through in two days. The work that remains for the carpenters and for the plumbers to do is of a pottering character, just enough and of just such a character as to be slow, and, consequently, exasperating. I presume to say that we will be in the house at the end of this week, but another week must elapse before we are in anything like order. Meanwhile the painters have nearly completed painting the outside of the building, which, with its new fresh coat of white paint and its green blinds is going to look quite stunning, we think. The front lawn has engaged my attention pretty much all of the time since you were here, and I have brought it around into a state of subjection, although I am told--and I think--that it will not be at its best before another year. The neighbors have been very kind, and have provided me with plants and flowers, and other green growing things, and the consequence is that I have a fine lot of flowers, roses, nasturtiums, and poppies. I have devoted about five square feet of ground to pop-corn, and, not knowing anything about the habits of the creature, planted it in a bunch. I have now enough pop-corn to do the whole State of Illinois for the next two years. It grows so fast that I seem almost to hear it grow. I also have thirty hills of potatoes which I planted myself. I dug them up every day to see how they were getting along. The neighbors made all sorts of fun, and said the potatoes would not live. They are not only living, but flourishing. All that I fear now is that the potato-bug will put in an appearance, and thus blast my first and fondest agricultural hope.