I have never _done_ a season before, and the heat and the late hours have tired me wofully.

Often, when I have gone to a ball, I have longed to go to bed instead.

And, now that we are home again, it would seem to me very pleasant to sit in leisurely coolness by the pool, and to watch the birth, and the prosperous short lives, of the late roses, and the great bright gladioli in the garden-borders.

Yes, it would have seemed very pleasant to me--if--( why is life so full of _ifs_?
"Ifs" and "Buts," "Ifs" and "Buts," it seems made up of them! Little ugly words! in heaven there will be none of you!)--if--to back and support the outward good luck, there had been any inward content.

But there is none! The trouble that I took with me to London, I have brought back thence whole and undiminished.
It is September now; so far has the year advanced! We are well into the partridges.