er it wasn't
true in any particular; that Ned adored you and was an angel. Of
course, he got drunk--that I knew, as all the world did, but you were
used to that. It isn't true, is it? He never struck you? I'm sure he
didn't! You'd have told a good friend like me; wouldn't you?

Well, just as Lady Jenks and I finished the others came back from going
through all the other rooms. We were everyone of us dead tired, looking
at pictures is so fatiguing. We decided to go back to the hotel and
have tea in the garden. But I think it is a dear gallery, and
to-morrow--we don't leave till the next day--if we've any time left
after doing the shops, I intend to go back and see the pictures all
over again.

Write to Eaton Sqr.; the servants will forward. Poor things, they must
have had a dull summer! They say the heat in town has been fearful! But
I don't think servants mind; do you? And then they have the run of the
house. I am sure they use the drawing-room and sleep in my bed!

Good-bye,

Lovingly,

FANNY.

Aubrey says Janet's portrait is by Rembrandt; but I tell him I don't
think it was by a Frenchman at all, I think it was by Greuze.

Sorrow

A Letter

_A Letter to Mrs. Carly, Florence, Italy._

New York, Wednesday.

My Dear Mary:

You were right when you said to me, two years ago, that the time would
come when I would realize the futility, the selfish, the absurd
insufficiency of my life. It is now six months since I lost my little
girl--my only child. I thank you so much for your letter; I was sure
you, who had so much heart, would realize more than most people what I
suffered and feel still. And it needn't have been--I shall always
maintain it _needn't_ have been! She was overheated at dancing-school
and caught cold coming home. I was late dressing for an early dinner,
thought it was nothing, and paid no attention. From the dinner I went
to the opera, from the opera to a ball, on to somebody else's. I was
dead tired when I came home and fell into bed and asleep. All this
time, my child, with her cold, was sleeping close beside an open
window! The maid was careless, of course, but it wasn't _her_ child--it
was mine--and I hold myself most to blame. In two more days the doctor
told me she couldn't live. I shall never forgive him! In six hours she
was dead. I think I went quite mad. I know I really felt as if I had
wantonly murdered her; and I still feel I was myself largely
responsible. She was the dear