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 several times, and I have asked a number of my friends to do so, and together we have concluded that what she really wants is to ask me if I should be willing to speak at a parents' association at some not distant date.

Now these women to whom I refer are not illiterate women. Many of them have been to college. Some of them have been teachers, and the one to whom I have last referred is the wife of an educated man, and was herself for several years a teacher. If there is a reason for this curious prolixity in their written speech, it lies, I suppose, in the fact that most women have had little actual contact with business. They are unfamiliar with business methods; they do not approach a subject directly; they are given to complicated explanations.

It is never wise to use sarcasm or to show anger in a letter. The words that are spoken in a passion become blurred and faded with time; their sharpness is dulled as other events intervene, and ultimately we may forget them altogether, but the written word eats into our memory and galls us more and more as time goes