s I found Archie and Quentin
having a great play, chuckling with laughter, Archie driving Quentin by
his suspenders, which were fixed to the end of a pair of woollen reins.
Then they would ambush me and we would have a vigorous pillow-fight, and
after five or ten minutes of this we would go into Mother's room, and
I would read them the book Mother had been reading them, "The Legend of
Montrose." We just got through it the very last evening. Both Skip and
Jack have welcomed Mother back with frantic joy, and this morning came
in and lay on her bed as soon as she had finished breakfast--for she did
not come down to either breakfast or lunch, as she is going to spend the
night at Baltimore with the Bonapartes.

I was so interested in your reading "Phineas Finn" that I ordered a copy
myself. I have also ordered DeQuincey's works, as I find we have not got
them at the White House.

. . . . .

SORROWS OF SKIP

White House, April 1, 1906.

DARLING ARCHIE:

Poor Skip is a very, very lonely little dog without his family. Each
morning he comes up to see me at breakfast time and during most of
breakfast (which I take in the hall just outside my room) Skip stands
with his little paws on my lap. Then when I get through and sit down in
the rocking-chair to read for fifteen or twenty minutes, Skip hops into
my lap and stays there, just bathing himself in the companionship of the
only one of his family he has left. The rest of the day he spends with
the ushers, as I am so frightfully busy that I am nowhere long enough
for Skip to have any real satisfaction in my companionship. Poor Jack
has never come home. We may never know what became of him.

"AN INTERESTING CIRCUS EXPERIENCE"

White House, April 1, 1906.

DARLING ETHEL:

I haven't heard a word from the two new horses, and I rather believe
that if there had been any marked improvement in either of them I should
have heard. I gather that one at least and probably both would be all
right for me if I were twenty years younger, and would probably be all
right for Ted now; but of course as things are at present I do not want
a horse with which I have an interesting circus experience whenever we
meet an automobile, or one which I cannot get to go in any particular
direction without devoting an hour or two to the job. So that it looks
as if old Rusty would be good enough for me for some time to come. I am
going out on him with Senator Lodge this afternoon, and he will b