from my writing-table, like a toy from a Nuernberg box with a tiny patch of greenest grass beside it and two or three tufts of trees. In truth it is a good-sized, very old house, and the green square is a large field. It is so steep that I wonder all the small children have not rolled out of the door and down to the valley one after the other, which is indeed a foolish remark to have made. I take great pleasure in my early morning walks, in which you have so often kept me company, dear child. I meet the little peasants coming down from the hillsides to eight o'clock school in their quaint long frocks like little old fairies, they look so wise and sedate. Often I go to the village of Unterseen, just beyond the great modern hotels, but looking as if it belonged to another century than ours. We have some friends, artists, who have lodgings in one of the old houses, and when I go to see them I envy them heartily. Here it is very comfortable, but some of the people at _table d'hote_ are very tiresome to see, noisy strangers, who eat their dinners in most unpleasant fashion; but I should not forget two delightful German ladies from Hanover, who are taking their first journey after many years, and are most simple and enviable in their deep enjoyment of the Kursaal and other pleasures easily to be had. But I must not write too long about familiar pictures of travel. I will not even tell you our enthusiastic plan for a long journey afoot which will take nine days even with the best of weather. Ada and Bessie will be sure to keep a journal for your benefit and their own. Are you really well, my dear Betty, and busy, and do you find yourself making new friends with your old friends and playmates? It goes without saying that you are missing your papa, but before one knows we shall all be at home in London, as hurried and surprised as ever with the interesting people and events that pass by. Mr. Duncan is to join us for the walking tour, and has planned at least one daring ascent with the Alpine Club. I came upon his terrible shoes this morning in one of his boxes and they made me quite gloomy. Pray give my best regards to Miss Leicester, and Miss Mary Leicester; they seem very dear friends to me already, and when I come to America I shall be seeing old friends for the first time, which is always charming. I leave the girls to write their own words to you, but Standish desires her duty to Miss Betty, and says that her winter coat is to be new-lined, if she