For, remember, if really intellectual or interesting people are found in the suburbs, they are, as I have just remarked, too tired from the day’s work to be available for society purposes. But the majority of suburban residents is made up from young married folk, and dreary, common-place, middle-aged ones, made dreary by their surroundings, and by their enforced severance from their more fortunate fellow-creatures. For unless they have real fondness for literature, or for helping among the charities and churches, and have tastes of their own which render them superior to their actual surroundings, there is literally nothing to keep them alert and alive. Whatever suburb is selected, it should include amongst its residents some family in a good position, to whom the new-comer is known or is known of. If the fresh resident has no introductions, his fate is sealed; the best people don’t call, and should some years elapse before the acquaintance is made that might have been so pleasant if made at first, the relationship can never be a cordial one. Rightly or wrongly, the feeling exists that such an out-of-date visit is not worth thinking of, and it rarely becomes what it might have been, had not the untoward delay slipped in between. The suburbs could be so different, nay, in isolated cases are so different, that I long for the residents to realise all they are throwing away, all one learns too late to really profit by the lessons. In Shortlands people used to be exceptionally fortunate, for there existed in our day an intellectual headquarter, where the ‘hall-mark’ was or was not affixed, as might be. Don’t please think I mean myself; no one who knew Shortlands would think I could be such an idiot, and all will realise to whom I refer. Some years after we left, that pleasant house was broken up by the death of the founder; yet as long as it existed it was invaluable, because it acted like a fountain of living water and kept everything, as it were, fresh and young. In all suburbs there should be something of the same kind, someone of real and acknowledged tact and talent, who should know who is who and what is what, who could recognise pleasant, educated folk and give them a helping hand, and whose house should issue the ‘hall-mark’ which should make all these said pleasant, educated people able to feel they can be, an’ they choose, members of the circle that ought to exist everywhere as a means of keeping souls alive and happy. A harder task, by the way, than the equally necessary one of keeping bodies in a similar state, and quite as important. Indeed, the one depends very much upon the other, as doctors are among the very first to recognise nowadays. In the olden times, and given a good man and a clever woman, the hall-mark used to be affixed by the rectory or vicarage, and whether the new-comers went to church or stayed away settled the question at once and for all time. But