"Since that period I have gradually become enabled thro' the improvement in my health to give much more of my time to my _Punch_ work--all the drawings selected by you for 'English Society at Home' have been done since then--and whatever other qualities they may possess, they are very careful and elaborate in most instances, and without this care and elaboration they would lose most of their value in the world's eye...." Then follows details as to the revision of the prices. And then a day or two later he sends the following letter: "_Jan._ 4, 1880. "Mr DEAR BRADBURY,--Many thanks for your kind note. It is really a painful effort to me to 'ask for more,' and I've been putting it off from day to day these six months. The pleasure and enthusiasm with which I have got to do my work for _Punch_ (since I have got better in health and so forth) are such that I should be content to go on so for ever, without any rise, if it weren't for my having such a deuce of a family! but what's a fellow to do! "You've no idea what it is to go trapesing up and down, hunting for a subject, _while all the time the hand remains idle. Punch_ requires such a lot of thought, you see--and then when the time comes for the hand to do its work, you can see what care and time are taken with the execution.... "I only wish it would suit the convenience of _Punch_ to take all the work I could send on a scale of prices literally fixed by myself! (ye modern Hogarth!! 10,000,000 a year! R.A.--P.R.A.--Sir George!!!)" At the foot of this letter is a thumb-nail picture of "Chang," du Maurier's huge Newfoundland, leading a blind man, initialled D.M. The dog holds a tin and begs from a passing fine lady, a well-known beauty of Society and the Stage, and the legend "Sic transit Gloria Mundi" describes the situation. [Illustration] § 8 The above letters were dated from New Grove House, Hampstead, where the du Mauriers lived for twenty-one years. They had moved into this house from Church Row, where they had gone when they first came to Hampstead, and where their youngest son was born. During the period of their long residence in New Grove House they frequently took a furnished house for the winter season in Town for the convenience of going into Society. It was the inaccessibility of Hampstead before the days of the Hampstead Tube that made du Maurier latterly relinquish many social engagements, and developed the disinclination for theatre-going which I have seen ascribed to an aversion from the drama.