ilosopher--I'll
stake my reputation as an observer on that--he just shrugs his sturdy
old shoulders, and goes on mending clocks and watches. On dark days he
works by a gas jet--and then Rembrandt would enjoy painting him. I
look at him whenever my world is particularly awry, and find him highly
beneficial. Davison has forwarded me to-day two letters from readers of
'Lynwood.' The first is from an irate female who takes me to task for
the dangerous tendency of the story, and insists that I have drawn
impossible circumstances and impossible characters. The second is from
an old clergyman, who writes a pathetic letter of thanks, and tells me
that it is almost word for word the story of a son of his who died five
years ago. Query: shall I send the irate female the old man's letter,
and save myself the trouble of writing? But on the whole I think not;
it would be pearls before swine. I will write to her myself. Glad to see
you whenever you can run down.

"Yours ever,

"D. V."

("Never struck me before what pious initials mine are.")

The very evening I received this letter I happened to be dining at the
Probyn's. As luck would have it, pretty Miss Freda was staying in the
house, and she fell to my share. I always liked her, though of late I
had felt rather angry with her for being carried away by the general
storm of admiration and swept by it into an engagement with Lawrence
Vaughan. She was a very pleasant, natural sort of talker, and she always
treated me as an old friend. But she seemed to me, that night, a little
less satisfied than usual with life. Perhaps it was merely the effect
of the black lace dress which she wore, but I fancied her paler and
thinner, and somehow she seemed all eyes.

"Where is Lawrence now?" I asked, as we went down to the dining-room.

"He is stationed at Dover," she replied. "He was up here for a few hours
yesterday; he came to say good-bye to me, for I am going to Bath next
Monday with my father, who has been very rheumatic lately--and you know
Bath is coming into fashion again, all the doctors recommend it."

"Major Vaughan is there," I said, "and has found the waters very good, I
believe; any day, at twelve o'clock, you may see him getting out of his
chair and going into the Pump Room on Derrick's arm. I often wonder
what outsiders think of them. It isn't often, is it, that one sees a son
absolutely giving up his life to his invalid father?"

She looked a little startled.

"I wi