pay up here and get to Blackpool—for I have been ill again with my lungs, and I _badly_ need a change. Will you help a stranger with this not very big loan, and on interest? I would bring all the accounts and papers to show you when I come to town. And if I have found a friend in you, I shall indeed thank God. You can trust me. I _am_ worthy, though I can give no references, because the people are dead. But I think you do not like being ‘bullied’ with such things. I am middle-aged, but a child in heart—original—and just myself, and look rather ridiculously young, without any artifice or makeup. But apart from the loan, I need a _friend_. The family used to sneer at me that I ‘never made friends for what I could get out of them.’ Truly I never did. I like rather to help others myself. I should like to help _you_ if I could in any way. I just love to serve. My life has been lonely, and both parents are dead, and I don’t make friends lightly. So that is all. But I won’t finish without telling you that I love the Master, the Lord Jesus Christ, as you love Him, and trust Him in all this darkness. I always like to bring His Name in—and so good night—I would be thankful if you will write to me in a _registered_ letter. Some of my letters have gone astray, I fear I do not trust the woman in these lodgings, and my letters are going to a shop to be called for. I am, dear Sir, Yours very truly * * * * * (Miss). _P.S._—Do you think you could get a letter to me by _Saturday_? I do so love your poems. I put this in here because it is not a letter to answer, nor yet somehow a letter to throw away. The style reminds me of one of my Irish female cousins. And that again reminds me of the ancient Irish triad—‘Three ugly sisters: Chatter, Poverty, and Chastity.’ III I went to six preparatory schools. The first was a dame’s school at Wimbledon. I went there at the age of six. My father, as an educational expert, did not let me stay here long. He found me crying one day at the difficulty of the twenty-three-times table, and there was a Question and Answer History Book that we used which began: _Question_: Why were the Britons so called? _Answer_: Because they painted themselves blue.