I asked Mrs. L.D.W. if I might bestow upon her a tailored suit which has almost worn me out. She hesitated, shifted the 1920 model in Low-Down Wilkes to the other hip (babies are their only lavish luxury!) and allowed she didn't mind, if I was a mind to fetch it down to the graveyard corner some night after dusk. Every human being in Three Meadows has seen me wear it and could describe it to the last stitch and button, and every one will know where she got it. Nevertheless, in a world of foot-lickers, isn't pride like that delicious? I did for myself when I started that indoor circus effect; sentenced to be Scheherazade! Lady chariot drivers and spotted clowns and strange beasts swarm through the prim, gray farmhouse. Dan'l has stayed in bed for two days, and Uncle Robert's chirp is growing husky. Between circus performances I'm working like a riverful of beavers. The best story I've ever written is almost ready to launch. J. V. _Tuesday._ DEAR MICHAEL DARAGH, I can't _bear_ it about Dan'l! I don't mean about his going,--the old doctor is right about that, but oh, that wretched rover! Dan'l makes loyal excuses for him--he must be sick again or out of work or too busy; the flame of his faith never burns dim. This morning I went to the Deacon. "Look here," I said, "that fellow will never pay up and Dan'l is breaking his heart." He nodded. "Well," I went on, "I mean to make up a letter and put in twenty dollars and send it to a friend of mine in New York to mail back to Dan'l." His eagle eye grew bleak. "Falsehood and forgery!" he thundered. "I'm a plain man, sinful, Adam's seed as we all are, but I never yet soiled my lips with a lie." "Oh, you needn't bother about it at all," I assured him. "I'll do the whole thing. You see, my lips aren't so immaculate, or so fussy!" "I wunt act a lie, neither," he said. I could feel myself generating temper, and it was a relief for it deadened my grief over Dan'l to be fine and mad at his father. I looked him straight in his ice-blue eye. "Just what do you mean by that, Mr. Gillespie?" "I wunt have the boy deceived. Ain't no peace comin' from a lie! Land t' goodness," he regarded me mournfully, "don't we have to strive night an' day, 'thout takin' any extry sins on our souls?" "Why, no, Deacon Gillespie," I told him sweetly, "I don't have a bit of trouble being good. It just seems to come naturally to me!" I know he yearned to box my ears. Instead, he roared, "We are as prone to evil as the sparks to fly upward!"