parting from Peter, and had written him long and encouraging letters for
me while I was going up to Nashville to have my clothes made for the
trip to New York and trying to get a little time in my garden out at The
Briers. I have to stop; I never let myself think of that parting with
Sam and The Briers. Some things are too deep for words. Then to continue
about Julia, I wrote her how to have her dresses made, but told her to
get only one little traveling-hat and leave the rest to Mabel and me and
Fifth Avenue. I also advised Edith and Sue to do likewise, but I knew
Miss Editha would have Miss Sally Pride make her a new bonnet on the
frame of the old one, and Peter said she would not be the "wraith of an
old rose" in anything else.

It was glorious that Tolly and Pink could both come, though Billy
Robertson was not sure. I did so hope that Clyde would get a real chance
to open Edith's kitten eyes for her through some heroic accident of
travel, and I was glad that Colonel Menefee was coming, because he would
engage Miss Editha's attention away from Tolly's attentions to Edith and
give them a chance to come forward out of their backwardness. The
telephone scheme had failed, Tolly told me, because the wire chief had
made a mistake and still left them connected at Central. "Central" is
the little Pride girl, the milliner's youngest niece, and very pretty.
Just as he was ready to begin firmly with Edith she sweetly said:

"Now your connection is good, Mr. Tolbot."

When I left home poor Tolly was really becoming embittered against the
world and was absorbing himself in putting up a new telephone line over
to Spring Hill. I told Peter how he ought to appreciate Tolly for
leaving business in that state to come up for the first night of the
play; and Peter said:

"Dear old chap; we must find the shibboleth that will unleash the hooded
falcon of his soul." Isn't Peter wonderful?

If all the invited guests in Hayesboro were busy getting ready to do
justice to the first night of "The Emergence," we were in the same
state. Judge Vandyne was planning to give a dinner that night to his
most distinguished lawyer friends in honor of Farrington, and daddy had
promised to try to come. Of course, Peter was going to have a dinner of
his own, to which he was inviting a lot of delightful friends to meet
his Hayesboro friends, and they were having both dinners at the Ritz, so
Peter could go in and make a speech to Judge Vandyne's party. Mo