veal.

Pressed veal is our cook's idea of an acceptable PIECE DE RESISTANCE
for a dinner party. In another month I am going to face the subject of
suitable nourishment for the executive staff.

Meanwhile there are so many things more important than our own comfort
that we shall have to worry along on veal.

A terrible bumping has just occurred outside my door. One little cherub
seems to be kicking another little cherub downstairs. But I write on
undisturbed. If I am to spend my days among orphans, I must cultivate a
cheerful detachment.

Did you get Leonora Fenton's cards? She's marrying a medical missionary
and going to Siam to live! Did you ever hear of anything so absurd as
Leonora presiding over a missionary's menage? Do you suppose she will
entertain the heathen with skirt dances?

It isn't any absurder, though, than me in an orphan asylum, or you as a
conservative settled matron, or Marty Keene a social butterfly in Paris.
Do you suppose she goes to embassy balls in riding clothes, and what on
earth does she do about hair? It couldn't have grown so soon; she must
wear a wig. Isn't our class turning out some hilarious surprises?

The mail arrives. Excuse me while I read a nice fat letter from
Washington.

Not so nice; quite impertinent. Gordon can't get over the idea that it
is a joke, S. McB. in conjunction with one hundred and thirteen orphans.
But he wouldn't think it such a joke if he could try it for a few days.
He says he is going to drop off here on his next trip North and watch
the struggle. How would it be if I left him in charge while I dashed to
New York to accomplish some shopping? Our sheets are all worn out, and
we haven't more than two hundred and eleven blankets in the house.

Singapore, sole puppy of my heart and home, sends his respectful love. I
also, S. McB.

THE JOHN GRIER HOME,

Friday. My dearest Judy:

You should see what your hundred dollars and Betsy Kindred did to that
dining room!

It's a dazzling dream of yellow paint. Being a north room, she thought
to brighten it; and she has. The walls are kalsomined buff, with a
frieze of little molly cottontails skurrying around the top. All of
the woodwork--tables and benches included--is a cheerful chrome yellow.
Instead of tablecloths, which we can't afford, we have linen runners,
with stenciled rabbits hopping along their length. Also yellow bowls,
filled at present with pussywillows, but looking forward to dandelions
a