The new gardener continues to bring in more and more plants; his business is aptly named Mr. Plant. I'm sure, though, that our nosey neighbors think I am running a nursery out of the front yard.

Mr. Astor had yesterday off and, as I feared, the afternoon degraded into a pool of debauchery. As if we needed reinforcements, Mrs. Stuyvesant-Fish joined in the revelry and before long we were passing out titles like lemonade on a hot summer afternoon. I'm not one to pass on gossip, but it was reliably reported by her household servants (in our pay), that Mamie woke up next to a Yankee from Boston. She had not awoke next to someone whiter than herself long enough to make her check her pulse rather than her wallet. There was a very amusing period in Ye Old Gin Hall when a strikingly handsome boy from Columbia entered and set off a social tsunami. Mamie's claws came out and pawed the boy into a dark broom closet, but it was Dr. Brad and Bon Qui Qui who walked out with the prize. We managed to stay above the fray, somehow, and awoke virtuous with a hint of piety. That won't last long.