"_Monday Evening._
"MY DEAR TILDEN,--If I said, 'A bamboo settee is my only
want,' I had forgotten it long before your present arrived, which
certainly fills most commodiously a vacant space in my hall or on my
piazza, as the weather may be; and for which I make you my very best
acknowledgments. I do not think I was a 'discontented housekeeper'
before I had it, but I admit I have much more reason to be contented
now.
"I wish I could as easily send you in return the thing you most
want for your future household, or even tell you where to obtain
it. But permit me to say that I have observed that people become
more fastidious and less enterprising the longer they postpone the
acquisition of what, we are told by high authorities, was the only
thing wanted to make the first man happy in paradise.
"Your lilies, I am happy to say, are all alive and doing nicely. The
first leisure you have come and look after them.
"Yours most truly,
"F. F. BRYANT.
"ROSLYN, _Monday Evening_."