's house is like a home, and
has the indescribable atmosphere of gentle owners for generations, we
like it the best! It is ridiculous to be so prejudiced, isn't it?

Jim Bond says they are too poor to go to Europe more than once in three
years, and they only run over to New York to stay with Valerie now and
then, and sometimes down South or camping out in the summer, so they
spend all the time at Ringwood, and there is not a corner of the garden
or house they do not tend and love. Jim is a great gardener, so Octavia
and he became absorbed at once. He has not got much business to do, and
only has to go in to Philadelphia about once a week, so his time is
spent with Kitty and books and horses and the trees and flowers; and if
you could see the difference it makes, Mamma, in a man! His eyes do not
have a bit the look of a terrier after a rat, and he does not always
answer literally to everything you say, and if you speak about books or
art or anything of other countries, he is familiar with it all, and
listens and isn't bored, and hardly attending, so anxious to get his
anecdote in, as lots of them were in New York. But on the other hand
the Americans would never be the splendid successful nation they are if
they were all peaceful and cultivated like Jim Bond; so all is as it
should be, and both kinds are interesting.

Kitty is a darling, an immense sense of humour, perfectly indifferent
about dress, and as lanky and unshaped a figure as any sporting
Englishwoman; when she comes to stay with us at Valmond she only brings
two frocks for even a big party! But she is like Octavia, a character,
and everyone loves her, and would not mind if she did not wear any
clothes at all. You must meet her the next time, Mamma. She did not
tremendously apologize because the hot water tap in my bath-room would
not run (as Mrs. Spleist did when one of the twenty electric light
branches round my bed-room would not shine); she just said, "You must
call Ambrosia" (a sweet darkie servant) "and she will bring you a can
from the kitchen."

She sat on the floor by the wood fire in the old-fashioned grate, and
made me laugh so I was late for dinner. They had a dinner party for us,
because they said it was their duty to show us their best, as we had
seen a little of New York; and it was a delightful evening. Several of
the men had moustaches, and they were all perfectly at ease, and not
quite so kind and polite as the others, and you felt more as i