"Never before did I understand how indissolubly all arts are linked, how closely and eternally knit together in the vast fabric fashioned by man from the beginning of time, and in the cryptograms of which lie buried all that man has ever thought and hoped. * * * * * "My cat, Daisy, recently presented the Dankmere Galleries with five squeaking kittens of assorted colour and design. Their eyes are now open. "Poor Daisy! It seems only yesterday when, calmly purring on my knee, she heard for the first time in her innocent life a gentleman cat begin an intermezzo on the back fence. "Never before had Daisy heard such amazing language: she rose, astounded, listening; then, giving me one wild glance, fled under the piano. I shied an empty bottle at the moon-lit minstrel; and I supposed that Daisy approved. But man supposes and cat proposes and--Daisy's kittens are certainly ornamental. Dankmere carries one in each pocket, Daisy trotting at his heels with an occasional little exclamation of solicitude and pride. "Really we're a funny lot here in the Dankmere Galleries--not superficially business-like perhaps, for we close at five and have tea in the extension, Dankmere, Miss Vining, I, Daisy, and her young ones--Daisy and the latter taking their nourishment together in a basket which Miss Vining has lined with blue silk. "In the evenings sometimes Miss Vining remains and dines with Dankmere and myself at some near restaurant; and after dinner Karl Westguard comes in and reads the most recent chapter of his novel--or perhaps Dankmere plays and sings old-time songs for us--or, if the heat makes us feel particularly futile, I perform some of those highly intellectual tricks which once made me acceptable among people I now seldom or never see. [Illustration: "'In the evenings sometimes Miss Vining remains and dines with Dankmere and myself at some near restaurant.'"] "Miss Vining, as I have already told you in other letters, is a sweet, sincere girl with no pretence to anything out of the ordinary yet blessed with a delicate sense of honour and incidentally of humour. "She is quite alone in the world, and, now that she has made up her mind about Dankmere and me I can see that she shyly enjoys our including her in our harmless informalities. "Westguard is immensely interested in her as a 'type,' and he informs me that he is 'studying' her. Which is more or less bosh; but Karl loves to take himself seriously. "Nobody you know has been to see us. It may be because your world is out of town, but I'm beginning to believe that the Dankmere Galleries need expect no patronage from that same world. Friendship usually fights shy of the frontiers of business. Old acquaintanceship is forgot very quickly when one side or the other has anything to sell. Only those thrifty imitations of friends venture near in quest of special privilege; and not getting it, go, never to return. _Ubi amici, ibi opes!_