twig what's going on. I need hardly mention,
however, that very little gets past yours truly. I shouldn't wonder if
Ena'd _bring it off_. Rags asks me sometimes in a sheep-faced sort of
way what I think of things here, and I would have a joyous laugh with
him if it weren't for the brother.

Goodness gracious, but they're rich, these Rollses! I could make a pun
about their name and their money, but I won't, because it would be
cheap, and nothing is cheap at Sea Gull Manor. You can get a faint
idea what the house and the view are like from the hand-painted sketch
at the top of this paper on the left of the fat gold crest. This
stationery is in all the guests' private sitting-rooms in case any one
wants to make distant friends envious of their surroundings. Mr.
Rolls, Sr., told me he kept a tame artist painting these things at a
salary of ten thousand dollars a year, dinner and luncheon _menus_
thrown in. Ena's idea. She wanted something original, and what she
wants goes! So says Mr. R.

He's a poor little, yellow shrimp of a man, with dead-black hair,
where it isn't gray or coming off, and the same kind of beard goats
have. His eyes may have been nice when he was young, but nothing like
his son Peter's. Young Peter is altogether different from old Peter,
and he has blue eyes like the quaintest and most melting mother you
ever saw.

She does nothing but crochet trimming for sheets and things, world
without end, and if you admire it she gives you some. But she was just
_born_ to be a mother, and even having her sit crocheting in a room
where you are makes you feel good. She has eyes as blue as bluebells,
and as young, an apple face with a smile that longs for something it's
never known, and any amount of smooth white hair, which she does in
just the wrong way, pinched into tight braids. The one thing she won't
do for her daughter is to have a maid of her own, and Ena keeps
apologizing for it.

Mr. Rolls is a terrible dyspeptic, and the only things he can digest
(he has told me and Rags several times) are soft-shelled crabs,
devilled, and plum pudding or cake. When he has a pain he paces floors
like a tiger, but does not roar.

I haven't met many Americans here yet because the Rollses somehow
don't seem to know the right ones, and Ena makes excuses for that,
too. I wish she wouldn't. It gets on my nerves, and Rag's nerves as
well, I fancy, though he doesn't say so, and he's thinking a lot about
whether she'll _do_. Be