ying, as we are desired to do, Mr. Chesterton's best wishes
for your health and happiness for many future anniversaries, may we
very respectfully join to them our own, and add that during many
years to come we trust to be permitted to supply you with goods of
the best description for cash, on the principle of the lowest prices
consistent with excellence of quality and workmanship.

We have the honour to be Madam Your most obedient Servants

JOHN BARKER & Co.

The order entered in their books "under that aspect," the readiness
to provide millinery "for cash," convinces you (as G.K. himself says
of another story) that Dick Swiveller really did say, "When he who
adores thee has left but the name--in case of letters and parcels."
Dickens _must_ have dictated the letter to John Barker. After all, he
was only dead ten years.

"Aunt Marie used to say," adds Annie Firmin, "that Mr. Ed married her
for her beautiful hair, it was auburn, and very long and wavy. He
used to sit behind her in Church. She liked pretty clothes, but
lacked the vanity to buy them for herself. I have a little blue
hanging watch that he bought her one day--she always appreciated
little attentions."

The playmates of Gilbert's childhood are not described in the
_Autobiography_ except for Annie's "long ropes of golden hair." But
in one of the innumerable fragments written in his early twenties, he
describes a family of girls who had played with him when they were
very young together. It is headed, "Chapter I. A Contrast and a
Climax," and several other odd bits of verse and narrative introduce
the Vivian family as early and constant playmates.

One of the best ways of feeling a genuine friendly enthusiasm for
persons of the other sex, without gliding into anything with a
shorter name, is to know a whole family of them. The most
intellectual idolatry at one shrine is apt to lose its purely
intellectual character, but a genial polytheism is always bracing and
platonic. Besides, the Vivians lived in the same street or rather
"gardens" as ourselves, and were amusing as bringing one within sight
of what an old friend of mine, named Bentley, called with more than
his usual gloom and severity of expression, "the remote outpost of
Kensington Society."

For these reasons, and a great many much better ones, I was very
much elated to have the family, or at least the three eldest girls
who represent it