desired information; but--believe it or not, Mister President--to date I
have had not a single word in reply.

Accordingly, until this moment, I have contained myself with all due
restraint; but feeling, as I do feel, that patience has finally ceased
to be a virtue, I am now constrained to address you in the first person
singular, being further emboldened by the reflection that already a bond
of sympathy and understanding exists between us, you for years having
been connected with one of our largest educational institutions and
fonts of learning, namely, Princeton, New Jersey, while I for some
eighteen months have occupied the chair of astronomy and ancient and
modern history at Fernbridge Seminary for Young Ladies, an institution
that in all modesty I may say is also well and favourably known.

If you find opportunity in the press of your undoubtedly extensive and
exacting duties for occasional perusal of the lay-press I think it but
fair to assume that you are more or less familiar with the causes which
actuated me in resigning my place as assistant rector of the parish of
St. Barnabas' at Springhaven and accepting the position which I now
occupy.

I regret to inform you that a number of newspaper editors in a mood of
mistaken and ill-advised jocularity saw fit at the time to comment upon
what was to me a serious and most painful memory. However, I mention
this circumstance only in passing, preferring by my dignified silence to
relegate the authors of these screeds to the obscurity which their
attitude so richly merits. Suffice it to state that having left Saint
Barnabas', within the short scope of one week thereafter I assumed the
duties which I have since continued to discharge to the best of my
talents, finding in the refined, the cultured and the peaceful precincts
of Fernbridge Seminary for Young Ladies that soothing restfulness of
atmosphere which is so essential to one of my temperament.

In such employment I busied myself, giving my days to the classroom and
my evenings to the congenial company of the Victorian poets and to my
botanical collection, until the summer solstice of 1914 impended, when,
in an unthinking moment, I was moved by attractive considerations to
accept the post of travelling companion, guide and mentor to a group of
eight of our young lady seniors desirous of rounding out their
acquaintance with the classics, languages, arts and history of the Olden
World by a short tour on an adjacent