caught hold of the little pink string by the end, and gave it such a pull, that the worsted ball rolled off the girl's knee and fell upon the head of Huggs, who made believe to think that it was a rat, and got up and jumped after it, and the kitten ran too, and gave another mew, as much as to say, that the worsted was its own finding out, and that Huggs shouldn't have it at all. All this wasn't done without noise; so the tall girl looked round, and seeing her worsted ball roll away, and Huggs and the kitten after it, she said in a slightly foreign accent, "'Worrit that Huggs!' "All this while there was sitting at the other side of the fire, a young girl, a great deal younger than the other; in fact, a little, very little child, who was sucking a dried damson in her mouth, and looked as if she would have liked to have swallowed it, but didn't do it, for fear of the stone. Now Huggs was the particular pet of the little girl, who wouldn't have her abused on any account, and she said, "''Twor'n't Huggs, aunt Strelly, 'twore the kitten!' " 'Eliza Puddifoot!' replied the other, in a somewhat raucous and melo-dramatic tone--'Eliza Puddifoot! I is perticklarly surprised, I is, that you comes for to offer to contradick me. I knows better what's what than you, and all I says is, that there 'ere Huggs goes packing out of the windor!' "The child--she was a very little one--burst into a flood of tears." Now, that is what I call fine writing, and no mistake. There is a breadth--a depth--a sort of _chiaroscuro_, about the picture which betrays the hand of a master, and shows how deeply you have studied in a school which has no equal in modern, and never had a parallel in former times. Almost equal to this is your sketch of the soirée at Mr Grindlejerkin's, which is written with a close observance of character, and, at the same time, an ease and playfulness which cannot fail of attracting a large share of the popular regard. Your hero, Mr Spavinhitch, has distinguished himself so much by throwing a somerset through a blazing hoop, that at last he receives the honour of an invitation to the hospitalities of the Master of the Ring.