, and I only hope those cold days did
not send them off to the Paradise of flowers. I am afraid their first
impression of Germany was a chilly one.

Irais writes about once a week, and inquires after the garden and
the babies, and announces her intention of coming back as soon as the
numerous relations staying with her have left,--"which they won't do,"
she wrote the other day, "until the first frosts nip them off, when they
will disappear like belated dahlias--double ones of course, for single
dahlias are too charming to be compared to relations. I have every sort
of cousin and uncle and aunt here, and here they have been ever since
my husband's birthday--not the same ones exactly, but I get so confused
that I never know where one ends and the other begins. My husband goes
off after breakfast to look at his crops, he says, and I am left at
their mercy. I wish I had crops to go and look at--I should be grateful
even for one, and would look at it from morning till night, and quite
stare it out of countenance, sooner than stay at home and have the
truth told me by enigmatic aunts. Do you know my Aunt Bertha? she,
in particular, spends her time propounding obscure questions for my
solution. I get so tired and worried trying to guess the answers, which
are always truths supposed to be good for me to hear. 'Why do you wear
your hair on your forehead?' she asks,--and that sets me off wondering
why I do wear it on my forehead, and what she wants to know for,
or whether she does know and only wants to know if I will answer
truthfully. 'I am sure I don't know, aunt,' I say meekly, after puzzling
over it for ever so long; 'perhaps my maid knows. Shall I ring and ask
her?' And then she informs me that I wear it so to hide an ugly line she
says I have down the middle of my forehead, and that betokens a listless
and discontented disposition. Well, if she knew, what did she ask me
for? Whenever I am with them they ask me riddles like that, and I
simply lead a dog's life. Oh, my dear, relations are like drugs,--useful
sometimes, and even pleasant, if taken in small quantities and seldom,
but dreadfully pernicious on the whole, and the truly wise avoid them."

From Minora I have only had one communication since her departure, in
which she thanked me for her pleasant visit, and said she was sending me
a bottle of English embrocation to rub on my bruises after skating; that
it was wonderful stuff, and she was sure I would like it; and th