O foolish virgin, how little you know of men, or at any rate of Fred! Once he is asleep no noise in this world can wake him, and as for getting things, he can get nothing. He is a pet, but no one ever took such advantage of that aloofness from domestic co-operation which so many men consider their right. In his attitude to the children he is a mixture of a connoisseur and a comedian. He is either admiring them—against backgrounds, æsthetically, as though they were porcelain or almond blossom, or physically, as though they were prize puppies—or he is using them as foils for his jokes. It is all very delightful and we are a happy family, but it makes me smile when you suggest that he could take the place of Emily in any capacity whatever. Children, he thinks, should be both seen and heard, which shows that he is a modern enough parent, but they should be seen only when they are picturesque and heard only when they are gay. This being so, please go on trying to find a nurse. There is always one leaving. Every day hundreds of children must grow out of nurses.—Yours, NESTA CXXXV BRYAN FIELD TO CLEMENCY POWER [_By hand_] DEAR MISS POWER,—I must confess that I had hoped to get to Herefordshire, but no more. The rest is Chance, dear beautiful Chance. And how did I discover that you were here too? I saw you in the garden from Miss Raby’s window and asked. Please send me a word of pardon. I should never try to influence Destiny.—I am, yours sincerely, BRYAN FIELD CXXXVI CLEMENCY POWER TO BRYAN FIELD [_By hand_] DEAR MR. FIELD,—I am glad that Herefordshire is so small and that the long arm of coincidence has not shortened. I am even more glad that it is you who are to take care of Miss Raby.—I am, yours sincerely, CLEMENCY POWER CXXXVII RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY MY DEAR, I have no posthumous activities to recommend to-day, having just returned from a temple consecrated to youth, where, but for its antiquity and its Roll of Honour, no one would think of death. I mean Winchester. My sister’s boy is there and I went down for the day to see him: a nice candid jolly boy. I came to the conclusion that there is a charm about an old public school greater than that of a university. The boy is more engaging than the youth: he may have “side” and affectation among his contemporaries, but with a much older man such as I am he is himself in a way that the undergraduate seldom is. The undergraduate’s whole desire is so often to be taken for a man, whereas the schoolboy at most would like to approximate to an undergraduate.