Lavendar tore up his fourth sheet of paper and began afresh. "Dear Mrs. Loring." No, that would not do; he took another sheet, and began again:--

"My dear Mrs. Loring,--Your commission for old Mrs. Prettyman has taken some little time to execute, for I had to go to two or three shops before finding a chair 'with green cushions, and a wide seat, so comfortable that it would almost act as an anaesthetic if her rheumatism happened to be bad, and yet quite suitable for a cottage room.' These were my orders, I think, and like all your orders they demand something better than the mere perfunctory observance. My own proportions differing a good deal from those of the old lady, it is still an open question whether what seemed comfortable to me will be quite the same to her. I can but hope so, and the chair will be dispatched at once.

"London is noisy and dusty, and grimy and stuffy, and, to one man at least, very, very dull. A boat on Greenshaw ferry seems the only spot in the world where any gaiety is to be found. You can hear the cuckoos calling across the river as you read this, no doubt, and Carnaby is rendered happier than he deserves by being allowed to row you down to tell Mrs. Prettyman about the chair. I feel as if, like the Japanese, I could journey a hundred miles to worship that wonderful tree.--Don't let the blossoms fall until I come!

"There seems a good deal of business to be done. My father unfortunately is no better, so he cannot come down to Stoke Revel, and I shall probably return upon Wednesday morning. A poem of Browning's runs in my head--something about three days--I can't quote exactly.

"If my sister were writing this letter, she would say that I have been very hard to please, and uninterested in everything since I came home. Indeed it seems as if I were. London in this part of it, in hot weather, makes a man weary for green woods, a sliding river, and a Book of Verses underneath a Bough. Well, perhaps I shall have all of them by Wednesday afternoon. You will think I can do nothing but grumble. All the same, into what was the mere dull routine of uncongenial work before, your influence has come with a current of new energy; like the tide from the sea swelling up into the inland river.--I'm at it again! Rivers on the brain evidently.

"I hope meanwhile that Carnaby behaves himself, and is not too much of a bore, and that England,--England in spring at least, is gaining a corner in your heart? Your mother called it home, remember. Yes, do try to remember that!

"Did you go to the garden party? Did you walk? Did you drive? Did you like it? Who was there? Were you dull?"

* * * * *

There was a postscript:--

"I have found the verse from Browning, 'So I shall see her in three days.'

"M. L."

* * * * *

"Tuesday, 19th.

"Dear Mr. Lavendar: First, many thanks for Nurse's armchair, which arrived in perfect order, and is a shining monument to your good taste. She does nothing but look at it, shrouding it when she retires to bed with an old table-cover, to protect it from the night air.

"Whether she w............