Dear Enemy [43]
should send my company of artists to paint a frieze of rabbits around the wall?
With love, as usual,
SALLIE.
Dear Judy:
Aren't you ever coming back to New York? Please hurry! I need a new hat, and am desirous of shopping for it on Fifth Avenue, not on Water Street. Mrs. Gruby, our best milliner, does not believe in slavishly following Paris Fashions; she originates her own styles. But three years ago, as a great concession to convention, she did make a tour of the New York shops, and is still creating models on the uplift of that visit.
Also, besides my own hat, I must buy 113 hats for my children, to say nothing of shoes and knickerbockers and shirts and hair-ribbons and stockings and garters. It's quite a task to keep a little family like mine decently clothed.
Did you get that big letter I wrote you last week? You never had the grace to mention it in yours of Thursday, and it was seventeen pages long, and took me DAYS to write.
Yours truly,
S. McBRIDE.
P.S. Why don't you tell me some news about Gordon? Have you seen him, and did he mention me? Is he running after any of those pretty Southern girls that Washington is so full of? You know that I want to hear. Why must you be so beastly uncommunicative?
Tuesday, 4:27 P.M. Dear Judy:
Your telegram came two minutes ago by telephone.
Yes, thank you, I shall be delighted to arrive at 5:49 on Thursday afternoon. And don't make any engagements for that evening, please, as I intend to sit up until midnight talking John Grier gossip with you and the president.
Friday and Saturday and Monday I shall have to devote to shopping. Oh, yes, you're right; I already possess more clothes than any jailbird needs, but when spring comes, I must have new plumage. As it is, I wear an evening gown every night just to wear them out--no, not entirely that; to make myself believe that I'm still an ordinary girl despite this extraordinary life that you have pushed me into.
The Hon. Cy found me yesterday arrayed in a Nile-green crepe (Jane's creation, though it looked Parisian). He was quite puzzled when he found I wasn't going to a ball. I invited him to stay and dine with me, and he accepted! We got on very affably. He expands over his dinner. Food appears to agree with him. If there's any Bernard Shaw in New York just now, I believe that I might spare a couple of hours Saturday afternoon for a matinee. G. B. S.'s dialogue would afford such a life-giving contrast to the Hon. Cy's.
There's no use writing any more; I'll wait and talk.
ADDIO.
SALLIE.
P.S. Oh dear! just as I had begun to catch glimmerings of niceness in Sandy, he broke out again and was ABOMINABLE. We unfortunately have five cases of measles in this institution, and the man's manner suggests that Miss Snaith and I gave the measles to the children on purpose to make him trouble. There are many days when I should be willing to accept our doctor's resignation.
Wednesday. Dear Enemy:
Your brief and dignified note of yesterday is at hand. I have never known anybody whose literary style resembled so exactly his spoken word.
And you will be greatly obliged if I will drop my absurd fashion of calling you "Enemy"? I will drop my absurd fashion of calling you Enemy just as soon as you drop your absurd fashion of getting angry and abusive and insulting the moment any little thing goes wrong.
I am leaving tomorrow afternoon to spend four days in New York.
Yours truly,
S. McBRIDE.
CHEZ THE PENDLETONS, New York. My dear Enemy:
I trust that this note will find you in a more affable frame of
With love, as usual,
SALLIE.
Dear Judy:
Aren't you ever coming back to New York? Please hurry! I need a new hat, and am desirous of shopping for it on Fifth Avenue, not on Water Street. Mrs. Gruby, our best milliner, does not believe in slavishly following Paris Fashions; she originates her own styles. But three years ago, as a great concession to convention, she did make a tour of the New York shops, and is still creating models on the uplift of that visit.
Also, besides my own hat, I must buy 113 hats for my children, to say nothing of shoes and knickerbockers and shirts and hair-ribbons and stockings and garters. It's quite a task to keep a little family like mine decently clothed.
Did you get that big letter I wrote you last week? You never had the grace to mention it in yours of Thursday, and it was seventeen pages long, and took me DAYS to write.
Yours truly,
S. McBRIDE.
P.S. Why don't you tell me some news about Gordon? Have you seen him, and did he mention me? Is he running after any of those pretty Southern girls that Washington is so full of? You know that I want to hear. Why must you be so beastly uncommunicative?
Tuesday, 4:27 P.M. Dear Judy:
Your telegram came two minutes ago by telephone.
Yes, thank you, I shall be delighted to arrive at 5:49 on Thursday afternoon. And don't make any engagements for that evening, please, as I intend to sit up until midnight talking John Grier gossip with you and the president.
Friday and Saturday and Monday I shall have to devote to shopping. Oh, yes, you're right; I already possess more clothes than any jailbird needs, but when spring comes, I must have new plumage. As it is, I wear an evening gown every night just to wear them out--no, not entirely that; to make myself believe that I'm still an ordinary girl despite this extraordinary life that you have pushed me into.
The Hon. Cy found me yesterday arrayed in a Nile-green crepe (Jane's creation, though it looked Parisian). He was quite puzzled when he found I wasn't going to a ball. I invited him to stay and dine with me, and he accepted! We got on very affably. He expands over his dinner. Food appears to agree with him. If there's any Bernard Shaw in New York just now, I believe that I might spare a couple of hours Saturday afternoon for a matinee. G. B. S.'s dialogue would afford such a life-giving contrast to the Hon. Cy's.
There's no use writing any more; I'll wait and talk.
ADDIO.
SALLIE.
P.S. Oh dear! just as I had begun to catch glimmerings of niceness in Sandy, he broke out again and was ABOMINABLE. We unfortunately have five cases of measles in this institution, and the man's manner suggests that Miss Snaith and I gave the measles to the children on purpose to make him trouble. There are many days when I should be willing to accept our doctor's resignation.
Wednesday. Dear Enemy:
Your brief and dignified note of yesterday is at hand. I have never known anybody whose literary style resembled so exactly his spoken word.
And you will be greatly obliged if I will drop my absurd fashion of calling you "Enemy"? I will drop my absurd fashion of calling you Enemy just as soon as you drop your absurd fashion of getting angry and abusive and insulting the moment any little thing goes wrong.
I am leaving tomorrow afternoon to spend four days in New York.
Yours truly,
S. McBRIDE.
CHEZ THE PENDLETONS, New York. My dear Enemy:
I trust that this note will find you in a more affable frame of