If any really nice people happen to stop in their motor for any reason at the house in the morning, say about eleven o’clock, they are offered magnums of champagne, as if out of gratitude for their coming.  They hardly ever seem to do more than sip, so perhaps the black and yellow insects get the rest.  There’s an English butler, and it would make your heart bleed, or else you’d want to howl, if you saw his agonized, apologetic look whenever you, as a British person, knowing about other ways of running a house, happened to catch his elderly eye.

Mr. and Mrs. Rolls get up at goodness knows what hour and have breakfast together, so does Petro—­that’s the nickname for the son.  But Ena and Mubs and Rags and I can wallow as long as we like and have gorgeous breakfasts in our rooms.  Mubs thinks Mrs. R. is a fool, because she can hardly understand what a woman wants with a vote, but I think she’s a dear.  She sends cartloads of flowers to hospitals, and if you speak of a charity she hauls handfuls of dollar bills out of an immense gold chain bag she always carries on her arm because Petro gave it to her for a birthday present, and it, and Ena’s one, a size smaller, has the fat air of containing all her luggage ready to start off from Saturday to Monday at a moment’s notice.  I suppose it’s money that looks so plump.

Now do you think Rags ought to resist the daughter of such a house when church mice have long ago cut our acquaintance?  Of course, Rags is lucky at bridge (he gave me a lovely dress on board ship), but he can’t live on it regularly.  So far it’s a toss up.  I’ll let you know how things go.

Mubs is writing an article for an American newspaper which has offered her fifty pounds.  This is the first fun she’s ever got out of being a countess—­and now I shouldn’t wonder if she’d be a dowager soon!  As for me, I’m trying to flirt with Petro.  No, to be honest, that isn’t quite true.  I’m not exactly flirting.  He’s too good for that.  Ena says he’s “glue,” because he has no interest in life, and that it’ll cheer him up if I encourage him to talk to me about some philanthropical schemes he has.

One is a “Start in Life Fund” for deserving and clever young people who need only a hand up to get on.  I wish I could go in for it myself—­but perhaps I’m not deserving or clever.  Anyhow Ena says her brother likes me awfully, better than any girl he ever saw before, and that he thinks me pretty.  Did you ever? No wonder I like him!  I shouldn’t mind his knowing that I do, as Ena says he thinks no girl could care for him.  That sounds pathetic.  I let her know that, as he’s so despairingly modest, she might break it to him that I enjoy his society.  Since then he’s been much nicer, though, perhaps still a little absent-minded, which may come from being “blue.”  I should like to know what Ena said to him!  But I suppose it’s all right!

Your chum and cousin,
  EILY.