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 if they were of the same sex as Englishmen, and you quite understood that they could get in love.  The one at my right hand was a pet, and has asked us to a dinner at the Squirrels Club to-night, and I am looking forward to it so.  The women were charming, not so well dressed as in New York, and perhaps not so pretty, or so very bright and ready with repartee as there, but sweet all the same.  And I am sure they are all as good as gold, and don’t have divorces in the family nearly so often.  That was the impression they gave me.  One even spoke to me of her baby, and we had quite a “young mother’s conversation,” and I was able to let myself go and talk of my two angels without feeling I should be a dreadful bore.  It was, of course, while the men stayed in the dining-room, which they did here just like England.

The Squirrels Club is as old as Kitty’s house, and is such a quaint idea.  All the members cook the dinner in a great kitchen, and there are no servants to wait or lay the table, or anything, only a care-taker who washes up.  We are to go there about seven—­it is in the country, too—­and help to cook also; won’t it be too delightful, Mamma!  Octavia says she feels young again at the thought.  I will finish this to-morrow, and tell you all about it before the post goes.