“As to the American side of Mrs. Burnett, she has lived over here in touch with the most characteristically and the most broadly American society in Washington and later in New York and its vicinity. As a young girl she saw a good deal of New York life and it was during that time, I imagine, that she got the impressions that produced the earlier part of _The Shuttle_. Her saying that she was ‘English by birth and American by the birth of her two sons’ I have always thought an amusing expression of her case. In describing Bettina to me, once, she said that Bettina was a woman’s version of the cleverness and sense of values that the first Reuben Vandenpoel expressed. This seems to me to be the underlying quality in Bettina. Her sense of the world of things backed by her balance, her self-control and her typical American practicality.” Mrs. Burnett loathes New York for its noise and dirt. Though she no longer has Maytham Hall with its great terraced lawns and its rose gardens she has a big country place near Manhasset, Long Island, New York, called Plandome. It is within commuting distance of New York but oh, how different! A comfortable, rambling house is surrounded by gardens for which Mrs. Burnett buys flowers as uncontrollably as a bibliophile buys books. The house faces northwest and has “remarkable glimpses of sunsets.” Mrs. Burnett naturally has many children as visitors. For them there is a great doll house, the home of Lady Annabelle, who is larger than many of the youngsters that call on her, and who has a wonderful wardrobe. The big house is full of nests of children’s toys. It also contains much age-darkened furniture brought over from Maytham Hall, principally oak pieces of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries which Mrs. Burnett has collected. Lady Annabelle’s residence, for example, was formerly a bread and cheese cupboard which an antiquarian would tell you was probably made by a skilled woodworker not later than the year 1500.