Mr. Goring protested, with a stifled yawn, that he would be delighted. ‘There is nothing,’ he asserted, ‘more interesting than domestic correspondence. Look at the Paston letters, for instance. And I could fancy your mother writing quite in the Paston style,’ he added graciously. Edgar unfolded the thin, closely written sheet, written in those neat, sloping characters which had been drilled into all the young ladies at Miss Tompion’s academy, and crossed—for the habit of crossing a letter had obtained in Mrs. Turchill’s youth, and she returned to it instinctively under stress of foreign postage, albeit twopence halfpenny is not a ruinous amount to pay for a letter. ‘“I am pleased to hear that Daphne is enjoying herself, and that she is so enthusiastic about the scenery. I remember, when I learned drawing at Miss Tompion’s, doing a very pretty sketch of Chamounix, with Mont Blanc in the background, in black and white chalks on tinted paper. I believe some of the snow was scratched in with a penknife by Signor Pasticcio, but all the rest was my very own, and papa gave me a sovereign when the drawing was sent home. It used to hang in your father’s dressing-room, but one of the housemaids contrived to break the glass one day with her broom-handle, and I did not care to go to the expense of having it reglazed: Gilbert is so dear for all jobs of that kind. I have always understood that the Jungfrau is very inferior to Mont Blanc; but as you say Byron admired it I have no doubt it is very beautiful, though, of course, in a minor degree. Every geography will tell you that Mont Blanc is the higher. I hope you are careful to avoid wet feet”—hum—hum—hum,’ mumbled Edgar, skipping the tender mother’s injunctions about his care of his health, and hurrying on to that part of the letter which related to Daphne. ‘Oh, here it is. “Tell Daphne, with my love, that I am going carefully over all the house-linen—weeding out all the sheets that are weak in the middle”—dear old mother! she always will go into details—“and making a large addition to the table-linen. I have also had a new inventory made in duplicate. I know that the modern idea is for the bride to provide the house-linen. That is all very well when the husband is a young man who has his own way to make in the world, but not for my boy, who has a home of his own—a fine old house which his ancestors have lived in, and spent their money upon, from generation to generation. I hope Daphne will be as fond of the old Hawksyard glass and china—which, as she knows, is the collection of more than a century—as she is of the mountains; but I’m afraid the romantic kind of temperament which goes into raptures with mountains is hardly the disposition which could take delight in housekeeping, and the many details of home-life.”’ * * * * *