I like to go about with Royal Lee. He is so efficient. Crowds seem to fall back for him. He has the attractive, masterful personality that everybody recognizes. I feel a reflected glory from his presence. We have grown to be great friends in an amazingly short time. Our music, our appreciation of each other's ability, has strengthened the bond between us. Mrs. Lee sends me many invitations for dinner and week-ends in her beautiful home, so that Mr. Lee and I are already well acquainted. He has asked me to call him Royal and if he might call me Phœbe. I've told him all about my life on the farm, my friends up there, and the plans and dreams of my heart. He likes to tease me and call me a little Quakeress, but I don't enjoy that for he does it in a way I don't like. It sounds as if he's scoffing at the plain people. When I told him about the meeting house and described the service he laughed and said that a religion like that might do for a little country place but it would never do in a city. I bridled at that and tried to tell him about the wholesome, useful lives those people up home lead, how much good a woman like Mother Bab can do in the world. But he could not be easily convinced. He thinks they are crude and narrow. When I told him they are lovely and fine he challenged me and asked if I am willing to wear plain clothes and renounce all pleasures, jewelry and becoming raiment. I had to tell him I'm not ready for that yet, and he smiled triumphantly. He predicted I'll play cards and dance before the winter ends. I don't like him when he's so flippant. I want to be loyal to my home teaching but I see more clearly every day how great is the difference between the pleasures sanctioned by my people and those Virginia and her friends enjoy. There's a mystery somewhere I can't solve. Like Omar, I "evermore come out at the same door where in I went." _October 29._ To-day we went for a long drive along the Wissahickon. The woods are bronze and scarlet now. The wild asters made me homesick for Lancaster County. I wanted to get out of the car and walk but Virginia and her friends wouldn't join me. I wanted to bury my nose in the goldenrod and asters--and get hay fever, one of the girls told me--and I just ached to push my way through the tangled bushes along the road and let the golden leaves of the hickory and beeches brush my face. It seems that most city people I have met don't know how to enjoy nature. They have a nodding-from-a-motor-acquaintance with it but I like a real handshake-friendship with it. I just wished David were here to-day! He'd have taken my hand and run me to the top of the hill and picked a branch of scarlet maple to carry with my goldenrod and asters. Well, I can't have the penny and the cake. I want to be in the city, of course that's the thing I most desire at present--I really am having a good time.