But this is the land where nothing astonishes any one, thank Heaven.
But you wait until I get my complet de velours--which is to say my
velveteens. I shall match up with the rig then, never fear. Rome was
not built in a day, nor can a lady from the city turn into a
country-looking lady in the wink of an eye. By the time you have
sufficiently overcome your prejudices as to come out and see me with
your own eyes, I'll fit into the landscape and the cart in great style.

Absolutely no news to write you, unless you will consider it news that
my hedge of dahlias, which I planted myself a month ago, is coming up
like nothing else in the world but Jack's Beanstalk. Nothing but weeds
ever grew so rank before. Pere says I was too generous with my
biogene--the latest French thing in fertilizers. But I did want them to
be nourished in a rich soil--and come up quick. They did. I can
actually see them grow. I am almost afraid to tell you that they are
over two feet high now. Of course you won't believe me. But it is not
a fairy tale. I would not have believed it myself if I had not seen it.

Alas! I find that I cannot break myself of reading the newspapers, and
reading them eagerly. It is all the fault of that nasty affair in
Servia. I have a dim recollection that I was very flippant about it in
my last letter to you. After all, woman proposes and politics upset her
proposition. There seems to be no quick remedy for habit, more's the
pity. It is a nasty outlook. We are simply holding our breaths here.




July 30,1914.