y one asked who
Maria Spalding was; and this was considered sufficient, for Mrs. de
Tracy's maiden name had been Gallup,--not euphonious but nevertheless
aristocratic.)

* * * * *

MY DEAR AUGUSTA (Maria Spalding wrote): I am going to ask you to
help me out of a _difficulty_. There is no _use_ beating about the
bush. You know that Cynthia's daughter Robinetta (Loring is her
_married_ name) has been with me for a month. _American_ or no
_American_, I meant to have had her for a part of the season, and to
_present_ her, if possible (so _good_ for these Americans to learn
what royalty _is_ and to breathe the atmosphere which doth hedge a
_King_ as Shakespeare says, and which they can never _have_, of
course, in a country like theirs). I know you can't _approve_, dear
Augusta, and you will blame me for sentimentality--but I never
_can_ forget what a _sweet_ creature Cynthia was before she ran away
with that odious American--and my _greatest_ friend in girlhood, too,
you must remember. So Robinette, as she is generally called, has
come to my house as a _home_, but a most _unlucky_ thing has
happened. I have had influenza so badly that it has affected my
_heart_ (an old trouble), I am ordered to Nauheim, and Robinette is
_stranded_, poor dear. She has few friends in London and certainly
none who can put her up. Tho' she _is_ a widow, she is only twenty-two
(just _imagine_!), very pretty, and really, tho' you won't believe
it, _quite_ nice. I am _desperate_, and just wondering if you
would let by-gones be by-gones, and receive her at Stoke Revel. She
has set her heart upon seeing the place, and some _picture_ she
was called after (I can't remember it, so it can't be one of the
_famous_ Stoke Revel group--a _copy_, I fancy), and on paying a
visit to Lizzie Prettyman, her mother's old nurse at Wittisham over
the river. She _promised_ her mother she would do this--and such a
promise is _sacred_, don't you think? It's such an _old_ story
now, Cynthia's American marriage, and no fault of _Robinette's_,
poor dear child. Her wish is almost a _pious_ one, don't you agree, to
pay respect to her mother's memory and the family, and is _much_ to
be encouraged in these days of radicalism, when every natural tie
is loosened and people pay no more _respect_ to their parents than if
they hadn't any, but had made themselves and brought themselves up
from the beginning. So don't you think it's a _goo