Lilian Steynes said the other day that if we were making any changes in the office, much as she liked her work here, her mother having died she thought it was her duty to go and live with her maternal aunt in the country.

The aunt thinks she can get her a post as a brewery clerk at Aylesbury, and she is longing to breed Aylesbury ducks in her spare time .-- There is Bertie Adams, it's true.

There's something so staunch about him and he is so useful that he and Praed and Stead are the three exceptions I make in my general hatred of mankind..." _Norie_: "He will be very much cut up at your going--or seeming to go." _Vivie_: "Just so.

I think I shall write him a farewell note, saying it's only for a time: I mean, that I may return later on--dormant partnership--nothing really changed, don't you know?
But that as Rose and Lilian are going, Mrs .-- what does she call herself, Claridge ?"--( Norie interpolates: "Yes, that was her idea: she doesn't want to blazon the name of Clarges as the symbol of Free Love, 'cos of the dear old Dean; yet Claridge will not be too much of a surrender and is sure to invoke respectability, because of the Hotel")--"Mrs.Claridge, then, is coming in my stead--He's to help her all he can--and my cousin, who is reading for the Bar, will also look in when you are very busy.

I shall, of course, see about rooms in one of the Inns of Court--the Temple perhaps.