the Family before I settle down to the
story. From careful study of the press reviews I gather that a story is
considered a necessary thing in a novel, so this time I am going to try
and include one.

You may, if you please, meet the Family after breakfast at Mr. Russell's
house in Kensington, about three months after Jay had run away. There
were four people in the room. They were Cousin Gustus, Mrs. Gustus, Kew,
and Mr. Russell.

It behoves me to try and tell you very simply about Mrs. Gustus,
because she prided herself on simplicity. Spelt with a capital S, it
constituted her Deity; her heaven was a severe and shadowless
eternity, and plain words were the flowers that grew in her Elysian
fields. She had simplified her life and her looks. Even her smile was
shorn of all accessories like dimples or twinkles. Her hair, which
was not abundant, was the colour of corn, straight and shining. Her
eyes were a cold dark grey.

Now to be simple is all very well, but turn it into an active verb and
you spoil the whole idea. To simplify seems forced, and I think Mrs.
Gustus struck harder on the note of simplification than that of
simplicity. I should not dare to criticise her, however, and Cousin
Gustus was satisfied, so criticism in any case would be intrusive. It is
just possible that he occasionally wished that she would dress herself in
a more human way--patronise in winter the humble Viyella stripe, for
instance, or in summer the flippant sprig. But a large proportion of Mrs.
Gustus's faith was founded on simple strong colours in wide expanses,
introduced, as it were, one to another by judicious black. Anybody but
Mrs. Gustus would have been drowned in her clothes. But she was conceived
on a generous scale, she was almost gorgeous, she barely missed
exaggeration. In her manner I think she did not miss it. She had
therefore the gift of coping with colour. It remains for me to add that
her age was five-and-forty, and that she was a novelist. The recording
angel had probably noted the fact of her novelism among her virtues, but
she had an imperceptible earthly public. She wrote laborious books, full
of short peevish sentences, of such very pure construction that they were
extremely difficult to understand. She wore spectacles with aggressive
tortoise-shell rims. She said, "I am short-sighted. I am obliged to wear
spectacles. Why should I try to conceal the fact? I will not have a pair
of rimless ghosts haunting my face. I wi