In the same strain the letter runs on for several pages. For a long time the signature was a puzzle, and then gradually rose before me the vision of a man with whom I used to dance twenty years before as a girl; he was then a rich bachelor in Park Lane. A few years after this he married, and I only saw his wife two or three times. Surely on such a slight acquaintance the letter could not come from her. But it did.
What is to become of the endless stream of charming but incapable women, whose husbands, fathers, or brothers leave them in this deplorable condition?
Among the newspaper articles for which my pen has travelled over reams of paper—articles responsible for much of my strange correspondence—were some on hand-loom weaving.
Far away in the wilds of Sutherlandshire, chance once drew my steps to visit a little croft where homespuns were woven by the family, while the hens laid their eggs in the corner, or cackled in the rafters. Years went by and better days came to that household.
Appreciation is always pleasant, and such kindly words as those in the following simple letter are good to read. The excellent English used by the writer is a testimony to education in the Highlands of Scotland.
“Dear Madam,
“I feel very much my inability to write as I feel in regard to the very able and very earnest appeal you have made through the columns of the Queen—on behalf of the British workman, but more especially for your kind way of writing about our little Cottage home.
“Dear Lady, your visit had gladdened our hearts but your paper more so, and I feel quite at a loss to thank you for your kindness. We have an ‘heirloom’ in the family already (the one you saw), but if this paper won’t be an ‘heirloom’ it will be a relic, in the family of all about the loom.
“My mother said while you were here you would soon come to understand about it, but I can’t help complimenting you on the retentiveness of your memory. I don’t think you have forgotten anything I said, but certainly you haven’t forgot about the hen laying her egg. “What a joke?” nor my kitten either.
“Teazled ought to have been spelt Teazed. Teazling is part of the operation fine tweeds undergo in the finishing process after being woven.