Dear Violet,—I’m glad to hear
you children like the Magazine
I ordered for you for a year:
and if you happen to have seen
the book about “Lord Fauntleroy,”
you’ll find an interesting bit
about the child that acts the Boy
(now they have made a Play of it)
in Number Six. She seems to be
a child without one bit of pride:
a pretty name too, hasn’t she?
the little “Elsie Leslie Lyde.”
I grieve to hear your bantam-hen
is fond of rolling eggs away.
You should remind it, now and then,
of “Waste not, want not.” You should say
“a bantam-hen, that wastes an egg,
is sure to get extremely poor,
and to be forced at last to beg
for hard-boiled eggs, from door to door.
How would you like it, Bantam-hen,”
you should go on, “if all your brood
were hard-boiled chickens? You would then
be sorry you had been so rude!”
Tell it all this, and don’t forget!
And now I think it’s time for me
to sign myself, dear Violet,
Your loving Uncle, C. L. D.