"Your friend, Mr. Norman, is visiting the Oxleys down here. It seems young Oxley is trying to write a play with some ideas in it, and Norman thinks he can help him! Who in the world wants to see a play with their ideas! It's a pity you couldn't teach him to do something useful—Norman, I mean.—Young Oxley is going into the Church! Why doesn't he go to Canada! I mean Norman.
"Do you remember little Lilias Oxley? She had pneumonia last year, though I warned her mother about flannel soaked in goose-oil and turpentine! She always looked like a hothouse flower, and now she is simply frail. Of course, she's pretty and has eyes that always makes fools of the men—not that that signifies! Everybody says she's artistic, but all I ever hear her play is by some newfangled foreigner named Debussy, and it's all discord. She's only nineteen and looks sixteen.
"Of course, young Norman comes along, and instead of picking out some healthy buxom girl, he falls in love with this bit of tinsel china! It's criminal, and should not be allowed. What kind of children will they have, if any! He calls her his Beatrice—Heaven knows why!
"They are together constantly. I would write to the Times about it if I thought that Lord Northfellow would publish it. We should have a Minister of Eugenics! Surely Winston Churchill would be better employed at that than trying to build up a huge navy we'll never need! By the way, I see he's taken to writing novels now!
"Do talk to young Norman! Tell him your uncle is doing very well with pigs in Canada; and why not induce your friend to go there, and get some common-sense, because every Canadian I meet has a head on his shoulders? It must be the climate!
"I am going to stay here for a month, and then visit my cousin in Scotland. She has six children. Whatever induced her to marry a minister? He has no money and no prospects—except more children, I suppose!
"Does that Mulvaney woman see that your room is kept aired? When you write you should have the window open and a cap on your head.
"I hope you will never write books! It is quite a distinction nowadays not to.
"Where did you go for Christmas?—Your loving aunt,
"Hannah.