MY DEAR MARJORIE,--You _are_ hard on poor ORIEL CRAMPTON when you say that philanthropy, brisk walks, a bad temper, and a taste for collecting postage-stamps, form the most hideous combination any human being could imagine. Of course, I admit he's a little dreary. All is now over between us. Things reached a climax one rainy afternoon when BABY BEAUMONT, in a mood of intense juvenility, offered "to teach ORIEL to make barley-sugar." Forgeting his school-days, ORIEL patronisingly said he was glad to learn from anyone. So BABY seized ORIEL'S arm, twisted it round in the classical manner, and then hit the twist. It was quite impossible to help laughing when ORIEL, pale with fury, declared he could take a joke, supposed this was the New Humour, and left the room. "What can you expect," said BABY, "of the middle-aged?" (ORIEL is _not_ twenty-four yet.) That evening I wrote a note, putting an end to our engagement. I gave it to him in the billiard-room, and--he gave _me_ one at the same time, and--_to the same effect_! I felt dreadfully hurt at his throwing me over. He wrote, "I feel I have no right to ask you, who are so fitted to shine in the society of the _gay and decadent_" (this meant BABY), "to share a life that will be wholly dedicated to the amelioration of the condition of the poorer classes," &c. In the midst of our agitation, we were compelled to play "musical chairs" with the others, as if nothing had happened! What a mockery it seemed! We parted amicably. He asked if I should like to hear, from time to time, of the progress of his life-work, and _I_ promised to be his sister.... When he went away, a strange sense of loss came over me.... One page in my life had been turned for ever!... BABY tried to console me by observing that _now_ there would be a chance of getting plenty of hot water for baths. ORIEL used to drink it all. At the tennis-party Mrs. LORNE HOPPER seemed utterly bored by Captain MASHINGTON. She said my dress wanted "taking up on the shoulders," and that the sleeves were exaggerated. (Exaggerated! I should hope they were!) Mr. LORNE HOPPER seemed nice, and very quiet, and harmless at first, but it gradually came out that he does sketches at the piano in the style of CORNEY GRAIN, and what is worse, expects to be asked to do them. Lady TAYMER implored us all to laugh, and we did our best to please our hostess; but the room was nearly empty in five minutes. At dinner, BABY talked of the bad taste and imbecility of practical jokes. In the evening, he wrote to seventeen periodicals denying he had written _The Mauve Camellia_, and asking to have it contradicted. We waltzed. Captain MASHINGTON dances better than ever, and _has_ nice eyes. That night I found hair-brushes in my bed, I see nothing funny in it, and shall not speak to BABY BEAUMONT until he apologises.