Letters from a Prairie Garden (UNABRIDGED). optional

The "Letters from a Prairie Garden, " are genuine letters and not fiction. They went through the mail. An explanatory word about their origin may not be amiss. Some years ago a famous artist came to a certain mid-western city on business connected with his profession. He had an acquaintance who lived in the hotel where the writer lived at that time and with whom he talked over the phone. The writer frequently happened to be talking at the same time, and the wires crossing, he heard me laugh repeatedly, and he nicknamed me "the woman who laughs." At length he called up the hotel clerk and asked to be permitted to talk over the wire with "the woman who laughs." The clerk connected my apartment.
In this way the "Letters" (which must now tell the rest of the story themselves) originated, and it explains likewise why the subjects discussed are so often pictures and objects of art. They were written to a connoisseur of things beautiful.