“Oh, dear! Only 10.30! And to know that while we are going to bed by country hours, with nearly everything still and dead around us, London is just beginning to bestir itself! When I lie down and try to sleep I shall see the wide squares, with their statues of somebody inside, and the blaze of lights over the doors of the theatres, and all the tingling life of the great and wonderful city. Ugh! It makes one feel like one's own ghost wandering through the upper rooms and across the dark landings, and hearing the strains of the music and the sounds of the dancing from the ballroom below stairs! “But, my goodness! (I can still swear on that, you see, and not be forsworn!) 'What's the odds if you're jolly?--and I allus is!' How's your dog? Mine would write you a letter, only her heart is moribund, and if things go on as they are going she must set about making her will. In fact, she is now lying at the foot of my bed thinking matters out, and bids me tell you that after various attempts to escape Home Rule, not being (like her mistress) one of those natures made perfect through suffering, she is only 'kept alive by the force of her own volition,' in this house that is full of old maids and has nothing better in it than one old cat, and he isn't worth hunting, being destitute of a tail. Naturally she is doing her best (like somebody else) to keep herself unspotted from that world which is a source of so much temptation, but she's bound to confess that a little 'divilment' now and then would help her to take a more holy and religious view of life. “I 'wish you happy' in your new enterprise; but if you are going in for being the champion of woman in this world--of her wrongs--I warn you not to be too pointed in your moral, for there is a story here of a handsome young curate who was so particular in the pulpit with 'Lovest thou me' that a lady followed him into the vestry and admitted that she did. Soberly, it is a great and noble effort, and I've half a mind to love you for it. If men want women to be good they _will_ be good, for women dance to the tune that men like best, and always have done so since the days of Adam--not forgetting that gentleman's temptation, nor yet his excuse about 'the woman _Thou gavest_ me,' which shows he wasn't much of a husband anyway, though certainly he hadn't much choice of a wife. “My love to dear old London! Sometimes I have half a mind to skip off and do my wooing myself. Perhaps I should do so, only that Rosa writes that she would like to come and spend her summer holiday in Peel. Haven't I told you about Rosa? She's the lady journalist that Mr. Drake introduced me to. “But let's to bed, Said Sleepyhead. “Glory.