"
Which, of course, was true.
"DOWN PENS"
"Have you written to thank the Froplinsons for what they sent us?" asked
Egbert.
"No," said Janetta, with a note of tired defiance in her voice; "I've
written eleven letters to-day expressing surprise and gratitude for
sundry unmerited gifts, but I haven't written to the Froplinsons."
"Some one will have to write to them," said Egbert.
"I don't dispute the necessity, but I don't think the some one should be
me," said Janetta. "I wouldn't mind writing a letter of angry
recrimination or heartless satire to some suitable recipient; in fact, I
should rather enjoy it, but I've come to the end of my capacity for
expressing servile amiability. Eleven letters to-day and nine yesterday,
all couched in the same strain of ecstatic thankfulness: really, you
can't expect me to sit down to another. There is such a thing as writing
oneself out."
"I've written nearly as many," said Egbert, "and I've had my usual
business correspondence to get through, too. Besides, I don't know what
it was that the Froplinsons sent us."
"A William the Conqueror calendar," said Janetta, "with a quotation of
one of his great thoughts for every day in the year."
"Impossible," said Egbert; "he didn't have three hundred and sixty-five
thoughts in the whole of his life, or, if he did, he kept them to
himself. He was a man of action, not of introspection."
"Well, it was William Wordsworth, then," said Janetta; "I know William
came into it somewhere.
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