t
wonderful stocking toys. Bob was in looking on, and Aunt Emily, of
course. Then, after breakfast, we all formed up and went into the
library, where bigger toys were on separate tables for the children.
I wonder whether there ever can come in life a thrill of greater
exaltation and rapture than that which comes to one between the ages of
say six and fourteen, when the library door is thrown open and you walk
in to see all the gifts, like a materialized fairy land, arrayed on your
special table?

A DAY WITH A JUGGLER

White House, Jan. 18, 1904.

DEAR KERMIT:

Thursday and Friday there was a great deal of snow on the ground, and
the weather was cold, so that Mother and I had two delightful rides up
Rock Creek. The horses were clipped and fresh, and we were able to let
them go along at a gallop, while the country was wonderfully beautiful.

To-day, after lunch, Mother took Ethel, Archie and Quentin, each with a
friend, to see some most wonderful juggling and sleight of hand tricks
by Kellar. I went along and was as much interested as any of the
children, though I had to come back to my work in the office before it
was half through. At one period Ethel gave up her ring for one of the
tricks. It was mixed up with the rings of five other little girls, and
then all six rings were apparently pounded up and put into a pistol and
shot into a collection of boxes, where five of them were subsequently
found, each tied around a rose. Ethel's, however, had disappeared, and
he made believe that it had vanished, but at the end of the next trick a
remarkable bottle, out of which many different liquids had been poured,
suddenly developed a delightful white guinea pig, squirming and kicking
and looking exactly like Admiral Dewey, with around its neck Ethel's
ring, tied by a pink ribbon. Then it was wrapped up in a paper, handed
to Ethel; and when Ethel opened it, behold, there was no guinea pig, but
a bunch of roses with a ring.

MERITS OF MILITARY AND CIVIL LIFE

White House, Jan. 21, 1904.

DEAR TED:

This will be a long business letter. I sent to you the examination
papers for West Point and Annapolis. I have thought a great deal over
the matter, and discussed it at great length with Mother. I feel on the
one hand that I ought to give you my best advice, and yet on the other
hand I do not wish to seem to constrain you against your wishes. If you
have definitely made up your mind that you have an overmastering desir