What volumes I have written, dearest Mamma!

Best love from your,

Affectionate daughter,
    Elizabeth.

PLAZA HOTEL, NEW YORK

PLAZA HOTEL, NEW YORK, Friday.

Dearest Mamma,—­Octavia and I feel we are growing quite “rattled.” (Do forgive me for using such a word, but it is American and describes us.) The telephone rings from the moment we wake until we go out, and reporters wait to pounce upon us if we leave our rooms.  We are entertained at countless feasts, and to-morrow we are going down town to lunch at a city restaurant, after seeing the Stock Exchange, so I will tell you of that presently.  We can’t do or say a thing that a totally different and garbled version of it does not appear in the papers, often with pictures; and yesterday, while Octavia was out with me, she was made to have given an interview upon whether or no Mr. Roosevelt should propose a law to enforce American wives to each have at least six children!  It is printed that she asked how many husbands they were allowed, and the reporter lady who writes the interview expresses herself as quite shocked; but Octavia said, when she read it this morning, that she thought whoever was speaking for her asked a very sensible question.  What do you think, Mamma?  Octavia is enchanted with all these things, and is keeping a large scrap book.  But the one we like best was in the Sunday’s paper, when there was a full sheet with dark hints as to our private lives by “One Who Knows.”

All the history of the little dancer Ottalie Cheveny was tacked on to Octavia’s past!  The name sounding something the same is quite enough reason for its being Octavia’s story here!  Tom is having this one put with his collection for the smoking-room, because he says when Octavia “fluffs” (that, I think, means “ruffles”) him, he will be able to look up at it and think of “what might have been!”

I am said to be here while a divorce is being arranged by my family because Harry has gone off to India with a fair haired widow!!!  Think, Mamma, of his rage when I send him a copy.  Isn’t it lovely?

We are enjoying ourselves more than I can say, and they are perfect dears, most of the people who entertain us;—­so gay and merry and kind;—­and we are growing quite accustomed to the voices and the odd grammar and phrasing.  At first you get a singing in your head from the noise of a room full of people speaking.  They simply scream, and it makes a peculiar echo, as if the walls were metal.  Everyone talks at once, and no one ever listens to anything the person near them says.