But if it worries you I'll go some night this week and get it over. Then I'll write you all about it. I guess there's lots of things in Mr. Stanwood's house you would like to see. So sit down and write me a nice letter soon, and get over this jealousy as quick as you can. It isn't worthy of the little girl I love so much. Your only JACK. XI NEW YORK, Dec. 9, 1894. DEAR MIRIAM,--I haven't had a line from you since I wrote you last, but according to promise I write at once to tell you about my visit to the Stanwoods. I went there last night. They live on the top of Murray Hill, just off Madison Avenue. It's a fine house, what they call a four-story, high-stooped, brownstone mansion. The door was opened by a man in a swallow-tail coat, and he showed me into the sitting-room, saying they hadn't quite finished dinner yet--and it was almost eight o'clock! That shows you how different things are here in New York, don't it? The sitting-room was very handsome, with satin furniture, and hand-painted pictures on the walls, and a blazing soft-coal fire. There were magazines and books on the center-table, some of them French. In about ten minutes they came in, Mr. Stanwood and his daughter; and they begged my pardon for keeping me waiting. Then Mr. Stanwood said he was sorry but he had to attend a committee meeting at the club. Of course, I was for going, too, but he said to Hester--that's Miss Stanwood's name; pretty, isn't it?--she'd show me the photographs. So he stayed a little while and made me feel at home and then he went. He's a widower, and his daughter keeps house for him; but I guess housekeeping's pretty easy if you've got lots of money and don't care how fast you spend it. I felt a little awkward, I don't mind telling you, in that fine room, but Miss Stanwood never let on if she saw it, and I guess she did, for she's pretty sharp, too. She sent for the photographs; and she gave me a wholly new idea of the Holy Land, and she told me lots of things about their travels abroad. When you called her the Gilt-Edged Girl I suppose you thought she was stiff and stuck up. But she isn't--not a bit. She's bright, too, and she was very funny the way she took off the people they'd met on the other side. She isn't as good a mimic as you, perhaps, but she can be very amusing. She's very well educated, I must say; she's read everything and she's been everywhere. In London two years ago she was presented to the Queen--it was the Princess of Wales, really, but she stood for the Queen--and she isn't set up about it either. So I had an enjoyable evening in spite of my being so uncomfortable; and when Mr. Stanwood came back and I got up to go, he asked me to come again. Now I've told you everything, as I said I would, so that you can judge for yourself how fortunate in having made friends in a house like Mr. Stanwood's. You can't help seeing that, I'm sure. JACK. XII NEW YORK, Dec. 18, 1894.