a
handicap. It is a weight attached to me, of course, but it's only the
stabilizing weight which the tail contributes to the kite, allowing it,
in the end, to fly higher and keep steadier. It won't seem hard to do
without things, when I think of those kiddies of mine, and hard work
should be a great and glorious gift, if it is to give them the start in
life which they deserve. We'll no longer quarrel, Diddums and I, about
whether Dinkie shall go to Harvard or McGill. There'll be much closer
problems than that, I imagine, before Dinkie is out of his knickers.
Fate has shaken us down to realities--and my present perplexity is to
get possession of six new milk-pans and that new barrel-churn, not to
mention the flannelette I simply must have for the Twins' new
nighties!...

_Saturday the Eleventh_

These imperturbable English! I didn't know whether I should take off
my hat to 'em or despise 'em. They seem to come out of a different
mold to what we Americans do. Lady Alicia takes everything as a matter
of course. She seems to have accepted one of the finest ranches west
of the Peg as impassively as an old work-horse accepts a new shoe.
Even the immensity of our western prairie-land hasn't quite stumped
her. She acknowledged that Casa Grande was "quaint," and is obviously
much more interested in Iroquois Annie, the latter being partly a
Redskin, than in my humble self. I went up in her estimation a little,
however, when I coolly accepted one of her cigarettes, of which she
has brought enough to asphyxiate an army. I managed it all right,
though it was nearly four long years since I'd flicked the ash off the
end of one--in Chinkie's yacht going up to Monte Carlo. But I was glad
enough to drop the bigger half of it quietly into my nasturtium
window-box, when the lady wasn't looking.

The lady in question, by the way, seems rather disappointed to find
that Casa Grande has what she called "central heating." About the
middle of next February, when the thermometer is flirting with the
forty-below mark, she may change her mind. I suppose the lady expected
to get a lodge and a deer-park along with her new home, to say nothing
of a picture 'all--open to the public on Fridays, admission one
shilling--and a family ghost, and, of course, a terrace for the
aforesaid ghost to ambulate along on moonlight nights.

But the thing that's been troubling me, all day long, is: Now that
Lady Alicia has got her ha