"Daddy," she says, "you're an old beast."
Ever yrs.,
Peter Harding.
[VI]
To Miss Sarah Harding, The Orphanage, Little Blessington, Dorset.
91b Harley Street, W.,
March 31, 1910.
My dear Sally,
If the proprietors of a very excellent emulsion of cod liver oil did not send me (as they do) a little memorandum book at the beginning of each year, I should find letter-writing to my sister considerably more difficult. The book is not spacious enough to be called a diary, and the lines allotted to each day are merely sufficient to contain the baldest records of two or three dry facts. But while it is less than a diary, for the keeping of which, if it weren't for you, I'm afraid that I should never have had even the desire, it is entirely valuable as a means to an end. And may the aforesaid proprietors wax therefore as fat and well-liking as their advertised babies. For although you may never have thought of it, oh sister mine, it was by no means an easy condition that you imposed upon me in exchange for your consent to my wedding.