"She is something like you, however, quiet and dignified, and fond of history. Mrs. Ethridge is great fun, and would be good company for mother, except that she plays bridge from morning till night. "You haven't told me what you think of my rescue, and of Balfour and the burglar. I wrote you a few days ago. "I had a letter from Brenda last week. Isn't it wonderful that she should find time to think of me when she is so far away. She is delighted because all the family are with her now, and they are to be in San Rafael the rest of the summer. "She is not sure whether she will be in Boston next winter. How I wish we might have her apartment again. But we can't tell what we shall do until father and Lucian return. She says she would like to be with me one winter, to be sure that I really deserve to be called her ward." Then, with messages to Mrs. Danforth and the children, Martine concluded her letter. It brought a quick reply, in which Priscilla laughed at Martine for her two rescues--if one can be said to laugh in a letter. "For an independent person it seems to me that you succeed in getting rescued from extreme danger pretty often. Balfour, in the fog last summer, had the easier time I should say, and I only hope that he and Herbert Brownville may not come to blows in trying to decide which is the greater hero. "If I am called on to help to decide, I should have to decide against Balfour, for you could not be half as much lost on a horse as in a boat." Although Priscilla was correct in her diagnosis of the different kinds of dangers, Balfour and Herbert gave no signs of coming to blows on the subject of their prowess. On the contrary, they showed an inclination to be very good friends. As Balfour's time was so fully occupied with his duties, Herbert acquired the habit of taking long rides on the cars. Then at the end of the route, or when waiting at turn-outs, he and Balfour had chances for the snatches of conversation in which boys find more pleasure than girls. Carlotta was as little pleased with Herbert's intimacy with Balfour, as with his interest in Martine's Latin. It might not be fair to say that she wished to keep her brother entirely under her thumb, and yet it annoyed her that he was so much less amenable to her than formerly. She liked to feel that he was ready to come and go as she wished. She especially needed him to help entertain her visitors, of whom she usually had two or three staying in the house. Now it happened one evening that Martine reading a Boston newspaper came upon something that excited her mightily. "O, mamma," she exclaimed, "Only think! Mrs. Dundonald is coming here--just listen; Mrs. Dundonald, the well-known artist, passed through Boston to-day on her way to York Harbor where she is to spend a few days with friends." "Well, my dear, what of it?" responded Mrs. Stratford.