tin's mind is firmly
settled--and every now and then I clamor urgently that we must do more
for it. But Justin's ideas go no further than writing cheques--doing
more for the party means writing a bigger cheque--and there are moments
when I feel we shall simply bring down a peerage upon our heads and bury
my ancient courtesy title under the ignominy of a new creation. He would
certainly accept it. He writes his cheque and turns back at the earliest
opportunity to his miniature gardens and the odd little freaks of
collecting that attract him. Have you ever heard of chintz oil jars?
'No,' you will say. Nor has anyone else yet except our immediate circle
of friends and a few dealers who are no doubt industriously increasing
the present scanty supply. We possess three. They are matronly shaped
jars about two feet or a yard high, of a kind of terra-cotta with wooden
tops surmounted by gilt acorns, and they have been covered with white
paint and on this flowers and birds and figures from some very rich old
chintz have been stuck very cunningly, and then everything has been
varnished--and there you are. Our first and best was bought for
seven-and-sixpence, brought home in the car, put upon a console table
on the second landing and worshipped. It's really a very pleasant mellow
thing to see. Nobody had ever seen the like. Guests, sycophantic people
of all sorts were taken to consider it. It was looked at with heads at
every angle, one man even kept his head erect and one went a little
upstairs and looked at it under his arm. Also the most powerful lenses
have been used for a minute examination, and one expert licked the
varnish and looked extremely thoughtful and wise at me as he turned the
booty over his gifted tongue. And now, God being with us, we mean to
possess every specimen in existence--before the Americans get hold of
the idea. Yesterday Justin got up and motored sixty miles to look at an
alleged fourth....

"Oh my dear! I am writing chatter. You perceive I've reached the
chattering stage. It is the fated end of the clever woman in a good
social position nowadays, her mind beats against her conditions for the
last time and breaks up into this carping talk, this spume of
observation and comment, this anecdotal natural history of the
restraining husband, as waves burst out their hearts in a foam upon a
reef. But it isn't chatter I want to write to you.

"Stephen, I'm intolerably wretched. No creature has ever been gladde