"Surely," I exclaim, "you--you don't mean to say you actually _enjoyed_ it?" There is a moment's appalled stillness; and then, very rosy, she stoops suddenly to kiss my forehead. "Daddy," she says, "you're an old _beast_." Ever yrs., PETER HARDING. VI _To Miss Sarah Harding, The Orphanage, Little Blessington, Dorset._ 91B HARLEY STREET, W., _March_ 31, 1910. MY DEAR SALLY, If the proprietors of a very excellent emulsion of cod liver oil did not send me (as they do) a little memorandum book at the beginning of each year, I should find letter-writing to my sister considerably more difficult. The book is not spacious enough to be called a diary, and the lines allotted to each day are merely sufficient to contain the baldest records of two or three dry facts. But while it is less than a diary, for the keeping of which, if it weren't for you, I'm afraid that I should never have had even the desire, it is entirely valuable as a means to an end. And may the aforesaid proprietors wax therefore as fat and well-liking as their advertised babies. For although you may never have thought of it, oh sister mine, it was by no means an easy condition that you imposed upon me in exchange for your consent to my wedding. "One letter a month, Peter," I can see your stern uplifted finger even now, "one letter a month you must faithfully promise me, or Esther shall only capture you over my dead body." And although in those glorious days it seemed but a little bargain to set one's hand to, yet I may now reveal to your horrified gaze--as regards the pre-emulsion period at any rate--visions of a haggard physician battering his cranium in a desperate effort to jog his memory for news. A little reflection will secure you from considering this to be an affront. For the very existence of such visions is the most eloquent testimony to the state of his brotherly affections; and to prevent your instantly taking the next train to town, I can assure you positively that the wing of a merciful providence (the liver wing) took him under its protection at the psychological moment. Thanks to the cod, its oil, and the emulsion thereof, his memory has been propped up just when he began to need it most. And this is why I can assure you most positively that, although ourselves and our daffodils are shrivelling to-day in the bitterest of easterly winds, but three short weeks ago we were picking primroses in the woods of Upper Basildon. We were staying of course with Uncle Jacob, who was celebrating his seventy-sixth birthday and the fourth anniversary of his retirement from the judicial bench in contravening all the known rules of health--or, at any rate, the modern conception of them. Esther and Molly went down on the Friday night, and I joined them on Saturday, his birthday.