‘DEAR ALFRED,—It is so tantalising to be in your neighbourhood without being able to get to dear Farringford that I must write to you from this. If we stayed longer I am sure I should slide away and make a run for your coast, but we go home to-morrow when our week will be completed. Where are we if we are your neighbours? Not near eno’ and yet not far. In one of the loveliest homes in England, where from the Tower you can see the dear Isle of Wight, the Parnassian Needles, and the silver thread of the outline of Alum Bay. Where are we then?... ‘Well, Canford is our dwelling-place during this Holiday week. This Manor, this Hall and this cricket ground have witnessed nothing but sunshine Holiday and midnight revelry all the twenty-four hours round. ‘The youthful host, Sir Ivor Guest, has had perfect success in his entertainment. Everybody has been charming and everybody has been charmed. ‘There has been great beauty here amongst the young Wives and young Maidens. ‘Amongst the young Wives “the Queen of Beauty” is Mrs. Hambro (one month younger than my Juley), frolicsome and graceful as a kitten and having the form and eye of an antelope. She is tall and slender, not stately, and not seventeen—but quite able to make all daisies rosy and the ground she treads seem proud of her. ‘Then her complexion (or rather skin) is faultless—it is like the leaf of “that consummate flower” the Magnolia—a flower which is, I think, so mysterious in its beauty as if it were the only thing left unsoiled and unspoiled from the garden of Eden. A flower a blind man would mistake for a fruit too rich, too good for Human Nature’s daily food. We had a standard Magnolia tree in our garden at Sheen, and on a still summer night the moon would beam down upon these ripe rich vases, and they used to send forth a scent that made the soul faint with a sense of the luxury of the world of flowers. I always think that flowers tell as much of the bounty of God’s love as the Firmament shows of His handiwork.’ (After this digression the writer returns to Mrs. Hambro.) ‘Very dark hair and eyes contrasting with the magnolia skin, diamonds that dazzle and seem laughing when she laughs, and a costume that offers new varieties every third hour,’ completes the sketch of the heroine. The letter also goes on to describe at length each of the ten members of the Guest family and many more visitors and relations, and is too long to quote in its entirety; but I cannot omit the description of: ‘all the young men and maidens standing in a circle in the High Hall and singing. ‘They all have splendid voices. All the boys play on flutes, violins and flageolet, singing every manner of Yankee chorus, glee and song, they dance and toss india-rubber balls, the grand hall seems almost too noble for this with its