She must be right. Mr. Balfour said she was the best letter-writer he knew. With generous reciprocity she read Mr. Balfour's books and realized without external help "what a beautiful style he wrote." And for goodness sake don't ask me how you write a style. You do it in precisely the same way that you cook a saucepan--that is, by the omission of the word "in." Yet one more quotation from the last column of the last extract: "If I had to confess and expose one opinion of myself which might differentiate me a little from other people, I should say it was my power of love coupled with my power of criticism." No, never mind. The power of love is not an opinion; and in ending a sentence it is just as well to remember how you began it. But I absolutely refuse to let my simple faith be shaken. She records the bones that she has broken, but John Addington Symonds told her that she retained "_l'oreille juste_." Her husband said she wrote well, and he must know. Besides, am I to be convinced in my penultimate chapter that anything can be wrong with the model I have followed? Certainly not. It would be heartbreaking. Besides, the explanation is quite simple. When she wrote that last instalment in "The Sunday Times," the power of criticism had gone to have the valves ground in. I will now ask your kind attention for my estimate of me, Marge Askinforit, by myself. There is just one quality which I claim to have in an even greater degree than my prototype. She is unlike real life--no woman was ever like what any woman supposes herself to be--but I am far more unlike real life. I have more inconsistency, more self-contradiction, more anachronism, more impossibility. In fact, I sometimes feel as if some fool of a man were just making me up as he went along. And the next article? Yes, my imagination. I have imagination of a certain kind. It has nothing to do with invention or fancy. It is not a mental faculty at all. It is not physical. Neither is it paralysis, butterscotch, or three spades re-doubled. I should so much like to give some idea of it if I had any. Perhaps an instance will help. I remember that I once said to the Dean of Belial that I thought the naming of a Highland hotel "The Light Brigade" showed a high degree of imagination. "Half a moment," said the Dean. "I think I know that one. No--can't get it. Why was the hotel called that?" "Because of its terrific charges." "Yes," he said wearily. "I've heard it. But"--more brightly--"can you tell me why a Highland regiment was called 'The Black Watch'?" "I can, Massa Johnson. Because there's a 'b' in both." "Wrong again. It's because there's an 'e' in each." I gave him a half-nelson to the jaw and killed him, and the entire company then sung "Way down upon de Swannee Ribber," with harmonium accompaniment, thus bringing the afternoon performance to a close. The front seats were half empty, but then it was late in the season, and looked like rain, and--