THE GUILE OF UNKNOWN FRIENDS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2808, 8 January 1908, Page 72

THE GUILE OF UNKNOWN FRIENDS.

GUINEVERE.— Thanhs for your kind wishes. I have forwarded your post-cards with pleasure. ALPHA. — Thank you, my dear friend, for ypuar kind wishes as expressed in your note. Also for the oaxdl you sent me. I reciprocate very heartily your kindly greetings, and hope that Luck, that tricky lodger, may take up his permanent abod« with you in your ohange of habitation. I wonder if you hwro a garden? A view is hopeless to expect, I fancy. Trust you'll thoroughly enjoy your holidays. RANOIOBA.— So glad to get you? post-card. Every momiexit co far seems to be absorbed iqj, writing notes ©J! thanks for Ohriotmia,6 and H®w Yeas prgSenigj bu.t you? twrn is

coming, dear.

You dictnH tell me if you

are returning to last year's address? W. YOUNG.— Thank you, my dear friend, for your Christmas greetings. They reached me a day or two after my owm had been sent to you. Indeed, I had fully intended writing, but in my busy life to write! a letter is to reach the supreme point of personal devotion — and) I raarely attain, to it. Charles Dickens, in one of his letters, describes my sensations about letter-writing so exactly that it made me feel like a bad copy when, I read the letter in Loioas's " The Gentlest Art," which is such a delightful book. From! it I make this brief quotation from. Edward Fitzgerald, and have, moreover, the surpassing assurance •to a«k you to consider it a message, though I know I owe you v letter! Pray do

write to mej a few lines soon is better

than, a three-decker a month hence." SHASTA. — Your card sent on, and many thanks for the vexy pretty one you sent me, Shasta. lam sure you know full •well how touched I am by your sweet and kindly wishes, dear, and how fully I return them. I cannot help fancying that there is an. undexnote of sadness in, your note, and do truly hope that there has been nothing to maiT "the brightness of your Christmas and l^ew JXear. Thank you so much for remembering m« with tho ferns. I hope -they ■will beep in " a becoming state of greennessi" for my sake! G-IULIA, GUINEVERE, and SHASTA all charge me with, messages of love, remembrance, an<fc New Yej^r greetings to the G-uildi of Unknown EVienda MAR.MEE. — Thank you for your kind fishes and pretty card. I sincerely hope you will be able to join our circle again this year, for I know many of our members have missed you and inquired for you, Marmee. May it b& a sweet and happy yeanr fo<r you, my dear friend, for you are on« still, I think, though too muoh given to silence! But I, of all people, should have a fellow-feeling for the busy women who have no time to 'write and can only

think of their friends. GYPSY. — Thank you for your card -with its kind message, Gypsy. It was good of you to find' time, for I know what a terribly busy thing country Christmas is. AXiPHA TI. — You don't know what pleasure that dear little boob gives me! You must have remembered how fond I am of Tennyson. And in 'this tiny compass I find many of my favourites, with the added grace that is pairt of the beautiful atmosphere of remembrance. You will wonder why there is the number after your penname. Well, it requires an explanation. I really should have given it long ago, but when your contributions to the competitions first came in I did not remember that it was due to the Alpha who had beem so long a valued miem'cer of oxssr C.C.C. to warn you that "the name was already chosen. Probably I did not realise that irom: a competitor you might 'become a correspondent — and 1 a correspondent who already seems to me> on such a friendly footing that I should be sorry indeed to lose her. Which snail it be?— will you be Alpha 11, or choose a new name, dear? TAFFY.— lndeed, Taffy, I did think of you—/ so often, an.65 realised, so fax as a' stranger may how much you would miss Hochelaga. I think I waa very much in the mind to *. sympathise .with you,< Taffy, for. l was experiencing that horrid! sort of " empty" feeling after a parting myself about the same time, and fairly ached with it. But It's no good, is it? Ore has to "grin and bear it." I'm so glad Hochelaga has not gone fair away. Now I know where she lives 1/ shall wonder sometimes if she is in the trann with m«. Yes, *' Neptune's Toll" has some treasures, baa it 'not? but " The Witness Kite" was truly youi own, HOCHELAGA'S thanks to all the unknown friends who sent lier greetings and good wishes on her marriage. Hearty thanks and affectionate, as befits Hochelaga'a friends and her dear self. Deat, dear--fcbis is ■*cry sad — I thought I. had given these long ago, but Taffy says I haven't, and so I must take it foi goranied! that the matter was overlooked, land for that I am. very sorry. I must quote Taffy's fently-veiled. reproach: "Would you. dear Immeline just mention, that Hochelaga had sent her thanks, for I should not like anyone to think sfo had been indifferent to what gave her so much pleasure." INTERESTED READER writes— and I think it so truly kind and considerate of her to do so: — "Although not one of your correspondents, I enjoy reading your articles exceedingly, and therefore take tK» upporfcunity of this season to thank you for all the pleasure you have given me, and also to wish you and your writers a. very happy NW Year. I should 1 have written before, but am only now recovering from am illness." Thank you for your kind thought and good wishes. No, I had no idea, that Heartsease was- ill. I arm indeed sorry. Would you let me know her present address, if it is not too much trouble. I fancy she must have moved, as it is two months or more since I sent her something, which she has not' acknowledged. I trust she has not been ill so long as that? KERANI. — Thanks for kind -wishes, which I d.uly appropriate, and give in exchange some heartiest " assorted" ones from my own private stook. I have addressed and posted your cards with pleasure, and am keeping your Wtter to divide (a desecration, of course) 'between myself and the Guild of Unknown Friends in my next Post Bag. A SILENT MEMBER, NO. 2 (this pen name was -taken long ago by one of the dearest of my little circle of unknown, friends).— Your Christmas charities, after much consideration. I_ spent as follows : — To the Church Mission and St. Mary's. Orphanage in Leith street — of which you will find pictures and an account in the Otago Witness of January I—l1 — I sent 10s, a present towards the Christmas rejoicings which was gratefully welcomed by Sister Ernestine. To the curate of vay parish I gave the other 10s to be divided between two poor

and friendlesß old ladies- for whom the evening of life sets cold and chilly enough so far as any worldly property goes. The little present was most welcome, and was given from "An "Unknown Friend." as also that to the Orphanage; so that there was in your present the charm of mysrtery as well as of benevolence, an<s for yourself the beautiful fragrance which surrounds

the silent giver. SWEETBRIAR.— Hope to write you by end of this week. The process of choosing is too delightful to hurry over. I hope you won't mind, my dear friend. .'