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(Dec. 5. 1935.)

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where all the academy pictures of the 1870s seem to have
found a resting place (cows: mists etc.). People came to
dinner, we went out to dinner etc., etc., you know the
sort of thing. The 'high spot' to me was a tea party of
Women's Institute Members, all such nice country women - and
one was an Indian, beautiful to look at and with a lovely
voice. She said to me, "We used to put paint and feathers
on our heads, now we move with the times," and she begged
me to come down to the Seven Nations Reservation in Ontario
and see the Indian Women's Institute members.

Since we returned we have been struggling with
Christmas presents. If you hear of anyone having to pay
duty on anything I send, will you very kindly ask them to
send me a line? But I hope it won't happen. I think I
shall be reduced to sending mostly handkerchiefs as no one
seems to mind what one sends in that way!

We had a perfectly marvellous afternoon by
Kingsmere Lake which was thinly coated with ice and which
looks like a sheet of oxydised silver. The white trunks
of the bushes stand out like ghosts against the blue
shadows on the snow. John saw a red breasted gros beak on
a tree, but there is very little bird life.

John Boyle and Alastair and I and Augustus (the