in-Chief, so his chief duty is to draw up ball programmes
and write dinner invitations, which I have no doubt he does in a
very warlike manner.

"When he remembers he comes round to tell me that he loves me
still. But, alas! he mostly forgets. Whitefoot is more faithful
than that, eh, Stair? I could wager that at the moment you are
reading this nonsense, he is sitting with his head on your knees,
looking up in your face."

(Stair put down his hand from the edge of the paper and touched the
rough head, and at the caress Whitefoot whined joyously, as he did
in church when the congregation sang "Coleshill.")

"Stair" (the letter went on), "I hold the Princess and you
responsible for Uncle Julian. I hear from him sometimes and he
tells me that you are getting to be a wonderful scholar. Well,
playing with your books will pass the time for both of you, and
keep you from thinking too much about me. As to my welfare, do not
pine away with worrying about that. I, Patricia Wemyss Ferris,
swear on the old oath, that I am fat and fair to see. I find that I
can answer the fool according to his folly, and leave wherewithal
to talk on terms of some quality with the few poor lost and
forwandered wise men whom one meets in these parts. The dear old
king with his David-and-Solomon beard, is really the most sensible
person I have yet talked with. So they shut him up, take his crown
from him, and say that he is mad.

"The Wise Young People who bear rule drink each other under the
table, race to Brighthelmstone, killing half-a-dozen children by
the way, and ruin themselves at play during the night. Altogether
it is a fine place, this London, and if you were here you might
very well say, with the witty Frenchman, 'The more I see of human
beings, the more I love my dog!'

"But you must not tell all this to Uncle Julian. I am learning
fast--though perhaps not quite what he expected me to learn. His
Princess is most kind to me, and, indeed, so is everybody. There is
a Prince, a rosy young man who walks delicately like a cat on wet
grass, and they say that he would like to lay his Princedom at my
feet. Which do you think I would rather be, Stair, a Princess with
her chin in the air (Ho! Menial, fetch me my crown. No, the one in
the left-hand drawer, most igno