It goes well with nearly all my dresses, and is _immensely_ becoming, all the girls say: very high, with long pointed wings and stiff bows.

_Simple_, my dear, doesn't _express_ it! You know I LOVE simplicity; but it is _Redferny_ to a _degree_, and _everybody_ has noticed it.
Well, my dearest Queen, here am I running on about myself, as if I were not actually EXPIRING to hear about you.

What my feelings were when I called at your house on that _fatal Tuesday_ and was told that you had gone to spend the summer on a _farm_ in the _depths_ of the country, passes my _power_ to tell.

I could not ask your mother many questions, for you know I am always a little bit AFRAID of her, though she is _perfectly lovely_ to me! She was very quiet and sweet, _as_ _usual_, and spoke as if it were the most _natural_ thing in the _world_ for a brilliant society girl (for that is what you _are_, Hilda, even though you are only a school-girl; and you NEVER can be anything else!) to spend her summer in a wretched farm-house, among _pigs_ and _cows_ and dreadful ignorant people.

Of course, Hilda dearest, you know that my admiration for your mother is _simply_ IMMENSE, and that I would not for _worlds_ say _one syllable_ against her judgment and that of your _military angel_ of a father; but I MUST say it seemed to me MORE than strange.