Still I am going to believe you and I renew the assurance of my mortification that I have innocently caused you the chagrin of discovering that you are not so well known, at least in this country, as you supposed. I suffer from the same chagrin: many of us do; it is the tie that binds: blest be the tie. I shall be extremely obliged if you will have the kindness to return to me the list of ferns forwarded to you by Messrs. Burns & Bruce, and for that purpose you will please to find enclosed an envelope addressed and stamped. I acknowledge the return of my cheque, which occasions me some surprise and not a little pleasure. Allow me once more to regret that through my incurable habit of believing strangers, believing everybody, I was misled into taking the lower view of you as a florist instead of the higher view as a botanist. But you must admit that I was right in classification and wrong only in elevation. Very truly yours, BEVERLEY SANDS, A.B. (merely). NOAH CHAMBERLAIN TO BEVERLEY SANDS _June 8._ SIR: I know nothing about any list of ferns. Stop writing to me. NOAH CHAMBERLAIN. CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN TO BEVERLEY SANDS _June 8._ SIR: It is excruciating the way you continue to persecute my great father. What is wrong with you? What started you to begin on us in this way? We never heard of _you_. Would you let my dear father alone? He is a very deep student and it is intolerable for me to see his priceless attention drawn from his work at critical moments when he might be on the point of making profound discoveries. My father is a very absent-minded man, as great scholars usually are, and when he is interrupted he may even forget what he has just been thinking about. Your letter was a very serious shock to him, and after reading it he could not even drink his tea at supper or enjoy his cold ham. Time and again he put his cup down and said to me in a trembling voice: "Think of his calling me a famous liar!" Then he got up from the table without eating anything and left the room. He turned at the door and said to me, with a confused expression: "I _may_, once in my life--but _he_ didn't know anything about _that_." He shut his door and stayed in his library all evening, thinking without nourishment. What a viper you are to call my great father a liar. CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN. BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE _June 12._ DEAR BEN: I knew I was in for it! I send another installment of incredible letters from unbelievable people. In my wanderings over the earth after the ferns I have innocently brought my foot against an ant-hill of Chamberlains. I called the head of the hill a florist and he is a botanist, and the whole hill is frantic with fury. As far as heard from, there are only two ants in the hill, but the two make a lively many in their letters. It's a Southern vendetta and my end may draw nigh.