Well! The house is for sale! What furniture I want to keep stored! John, who is prematurely old and half-dead with trying to earn enough money to keep us going as we wished in New York, has entered into it all in exactly my spirit. He has sold his seat on the stock exchange. He has disposed of all his business interests here. We find we have quite enough income to travel as long as we like, moderately, and to live abroad for as many years as we please. When we get homesick--as we are both sure to, for after all we are good Americans--we will come back here and settle down quietly in some little house, near everybody, but not in the whirlpool--on the banks of society, as it were, so that when we feel like it we can go and paddle in it for a little, just over our ankles. Two weeks after you receive this letter you will receive us! We sail on _Kaiser Wilhelm_ to Naples. No one here knows what to make of us! It's absurd the teapot tempest we've created. The verdict finally is that we've either lost our money or else our minds! With a heart full of love, Affectionately, AGNES. The Theatre Four Letters, a Bill, and a Quotation from a Newspaper I _A Letter from Mrs. Frederick Strong to her Husband._ ... Fifth Avenue, Saturday. My Dear Fred: You must come home at once. Dick has announced his engagement to an actress--a soubrette, too, in a farce-comedy. If it had been a woman who played Shakespeare, it would have been bad enough, but a girl who sings and dances and does all sorts of things, including wearing her dresses up-side down, as it were--that is, too high at the _bottom_ and too _low_ at the top--well, this is a little too much!--just as we were getting a really good position in society. If the marriage isn't put a stop to, you can be sure she'll soon dance and kick us out of any position whatever that's worth holding. It isn't as if we had any one to back us; but you never had any family, and the least said about mine the better, so we have to be our own ancestors. And just as we had succeeded in getting a footing, in placing ourselves so that our children will be all right, your brother must go and do his best to ruin it all! You see how necessary it is for you to be on the spot. We may be able to break the engagement off before it is too late. Leave the mine to take care of itself, or go to pieces if need be. One mine more or less won't make any difference to us. Besides, you must think of your children! Your brother, too; he's sure to regret it. I am ill over this thing. Can't sleep, and have frightful indigestion. Everybody's talking about it, and the newspapers are full this morning. My new costume came home from Mme. V----'s yesterday; but there's no pleasure now in wearing it! With love, ANNIE. January 19th.