The English sky is clear to-day. The sunlight falls in a white radiance on my plants. I sit at my windows with my grateful eyes on honest out-of-doors. There is a shadow on a certain spot in the garden; I dislike to look at it. There is a shadow on the place where your books once stood on my library shelves. Your specious books!--your cleverly manufactured books!--but there are successful scamps in every profession. I am, Very truly yours, EDWARD BLACKTHORNE. BEVERLEY SANDS TO EDWARD BLACKTHORNE _Cathedral Heights, May 10, 1911._ DEAR SIR: I wish to inform you that I have just received from you a letter in which you attack my character. I wish in reply further to inform you that I have never felt called upon to defend my character. Nor will I, even with this letter of yours as evidence, attack your character. I am, Very truly yours, BEVERLEY SANDS. BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE _May 13, 1911._ DEAR BEN: I ask your attention to the enclosed letter from Mr. Edward Blackthorne. By way of contrast and also of reminder, lest you may have forgotten, I send you two other letters received from him last year. I shared with you at the time the agreeable purport of these earlier letters. This last letter came three days ago and for three days I have been trying to quiet down sufficiently even to write to you about it. At last I am able to do so. You will see that Mr. Blackthorne has never received the ferns. Then where have they been all this time? I took it for granted that they had been shipped. The order was last spring placed with the Louisville firm recommended by you. They guaranteed the execution of the order. I forwarded to them my cheque. They cashed my cheque. The voucher was duly returned to me cancelled through my bank. I could not suppose they would take my cheque unless they had shipped the plants. They even wrote me again in the Autumn of their own accord, stating that the ferns were about to be sent on--Autumn being the most favourable season. Then where are the ferns? I felt so sure of their having reached Mr. Blackthorne that I harboured a certain grievance and confess that I tried to make generous allowance for him as a genius in his never having acknowledged their arrival. I have demanded of Phillips & Faulds an immediate explanation. As soon as they reply I shall let you hear further. The fault may be with them; in the slipshod Southern way they may have been negligent. My cheque may even have gone as a bridal present to some junior member of the firm or to help pay the funeral expenses of the senior member. There is trouble somewhere behind and I think there is trouble ahead.