the fact that she couldn't be heard in so large a room. But we are
supposed to discuss topics of the day, and Dante happened some little
while ago. He has no bearing upon aviation, or National Insurance
Bills (that is our subject next Monday night); but he is brimming
over with ethics, and it is the duty of your precious Ethical Society
to grapple with him exhaustively. I always wondered what took you
to that strange substitute for church; but now I see in it the hand
of Providence pointing the way to Miss Ramsay's lecture field. Please
persuade your fellow Ethicals that four lectures--or even one
lecture--on Dante will be what Alice Hunt calls an "uplift." I feel
that I must try and find an opening for Hannah's protegee, because
she helped me with Fraulein Breitenbach's concert last winter,--a
circumstance she does not lightly permit me to forget. Did I say,
"May Heaven forgive her" for saddling me with this Scotch
schoolmaster's daughter? Well, I take back that devout supplication.
May jackals sit on her grandmother's grave! Meantime here is Miss
Ramsay to be provided for. If your Ethicals (disregarding their duty)
will have none of her, please think up somebody with a taste for
serious study, and point out that Dante, elucidated by a Scotchwoman,
will probably be as serious as anything that has visited Philadelphia
since the yellow fever.

If you want one of Grisette's kittens, there are still two left. The
handsomest of all has gone to live in regal splendour at the Bruntons,
and I have promised another to our waitress who was married last month.
Such are the vicissitudes of life.

Ever yours,
VIOLET WRAY.

_Mrs. J. Lockwood Smith to Mrs. James Gordon Harrington Balderston_

DEAR MRS. BALDERSTON,--

I want to enlist your interest in a clever young Scotchwoman, a Miss
Alexandrina Ramsay, who hopes to give four lectures on Dante in
Philadelphia this winter. Her father was an eminent teacher in his
day, and I understand she is thoroughly equipped for her work. Heaven
knows I wish fewer lecturers would cross the sea to enlighten our
ignorance, and so will you when you get this letter; but I remember
with what enthusiasm you talked about Italy and Dante at Brown's
Mills last spring, and I trust that your ardour has not waned. The
Century Club seems to me the best possible field for Miss Ramsay.
Do you know any one on the entertainment committee, and do you think
it is not too late in the seas