I am so glad. May I come to see you? N. D. CLXVIII VERENA RABY TO NICHOLAS DEVOSE DEAR NICO,—No, please, do not come. After all the years that have passed, and the eight months and more that I have been thinking doubly—having so little else to do and believing that life was over—you must not re-enter my heart. It is sealed against you—at least so long as you keep away. How I should feel if I saw you, I cannot say; but I daren’t experiment, nor must you ask. You were to have given me so much; you took so much; you even, I confess, still hold so much—how dare I then see you, and even more, how dare I let you see me? You could never bear the thought of age, of life’s inevitable decline. So many artists cannot: it is part of the price they pay for their gifts—and no small price too, for it makes them a little inhuman and to be inhuman in this strange wonderful world is terrible. No, dear, do not come or again suggest it. My Nicholas Devose must be as dead as your Serena. The two who would now meet are strangers and they will be wise to remain so. But my Nicholas—I have him here and shall never forget him, and over him I often cry a little.—Your friend, SERENA CLXIX SEPTIMUS TRIBE TO VERENA RABY DEAR VERENA,—Your letter of good news to my poor Letitia has made us extravagantly happy—or at least it would have done so had any form of extravagance not become impossible. I am not in the habit of criticising those in authority; I think it a bad habit to which the facile grumblers, who form a large majority in this country generally, and particularly in towns such as this, where most of the residents live on pensions or fixed incomes, are too prone. None the less, I cannot conceal my chagrin and surprise that the Government cannot do more towards lowering the cost of living. Our weekly bills become more formidable every week, without any apparent reason. Why, for example, should a remote war in Europe increase the price of butter and eggs? The cows were not belligerents; there were no casualties in the poultry yards. As for coal, I am in despair, and the thought that your poor sister may be without the comfort of fires this winter fills me with a profound melancholy.