ments of moral philosophy, easily intelligible and certain
of general acceptance, modulate with consummate skill into the key
of _crepe de chine_, and with a further natural and easy transition
reach the grand theme of the glorious opportunities offered by a
philanthropical Oxford Street to a gasping and excited public. Or I
would adopt with grace and facility the attitude of a prejudiced
and hostile critic, show how cold facts and indisputable figures
reversed my judgment, and end with a life-like picture of myself
heading frantically in a No. 16 'bus for the bargain basement,
haunted by the terror that I might be too late. With what
dignity--even majesty--did I not invest an ordinary transaction in
_lingerie_, when I spoke of 'the policy of this great House'! Yes,
I believed I knew what there was to know of the supreme art of
writing an advertisement.

"But now the mists roll away and I see as it were remote peaks of
delicate and implicating advertising the existence of which I had
never suspected. It is to you I owe it. You have a theme that you
probably find inexhaustible. Fired by your example I shall turn to
my own subject (Government linen at the moment) with a happy
consciousness that I shall do a far, far better thing than I have
ever done before.

"Your obedient servant,
"CALLISTHENIDES."

Of this letter I will only say that few have the courage and candour to
acknowledge an inferiority and an indebtedness, and fewer still could
have done it in the vicious and even succulent style of the above. It is
a letter that I read often and value highly. The only trouble about it
is that I sometimes wonder if it was not really intended for another
lady whose name has one or two points of similarity with my own.

I cannot refrain from quoting also one of the many letters that I
received from my dear old friend, Mr. J. A. Bunting:

"And now I must turn to your request for a statement of my opinion
of you, to be published in case an autobiography should set in. It
was I who introduced you to a certain circle. That circle, though
to me an open sessimy, was no doubt particular, and I confess that
I felt some hesitation. Through no fault of your own, you were at
that time in a position which was hardly up to our level. But I
ad