"Then Mrs. Talcott and I have a great deal to do about the little farm. Mrs. Talcott is so clever at this. She makes it pay besides giving my guardian all the milk and eggs and bacon, too, she needs. There is a farmer and his wife, and a gardener and a boy; but with the beautiful garden we have here it takes most of the day to see to everything. The farmer's wife is a stern looking woman, but really very gentle, and she sings hymns all the day long while she works. She has a very good voice, so that it is sweet to hear her. Yes; I do play. I have a piano here in the morning-room, and I am very fond of my music. And, as I have told you, I read a good deal, too. So there you have all the descriptions and the details. I liked so much what you told me of the home of your boyhood. When I saw you, I knew that you were a person who cared for all these things, even if you were not an artist. What you tell me, too, of the law-courts and the strange people you see there, and the ugly, funny side of human life amused me, though it seems to me more sorrowful than you perhaps feel it. People amuse me very much sometimes, too; but I have not your eye for their foibles. You draw them rather as Forain does; I should do it, I suspect, with more sentimentality. The fruit comes regularly once a week, and punctual thanks seem inappropriate for what has become an institution. But you know how grateful I am. And for the weekly _Punch_;--so _gemütlich_ and _bien pensant_ and, often, very, very funny, with a funniness that the Continental papers never give one; their jests are never the jests of the _bien pensant_. It is the acrid atmosphere of the café they bring, not that of the dinner party, or, better still, for _Punch_, the picnic. The reviews, too, are very interesting. Mrs. Talcott reads them a good deal, she who seldom reads. She says sometimes very acute and amusing things about politics. My guardian has a horror of politics; but they rather interest Mrs. Talcott. I know nothing of them; but I do not think that my guardian would agree with what you say; I think that she would belong more to your party of freedom and progress. What a long letter I have written to you! I have never written such a long one in my life before, except to my guardian.--Sincerely yours, "Karen Woodruff." * * * * * "Les Solitudes, "April 15th.