"No," replied Mrs Danton; "I gave her a glass of wine instead." "Did she get the laudanum?" asked the doctor in a low tone; and to this question Mrs Danton's reply was made in a whisper, so inaudible that Janet feeling herself _de trop_, again got up and rejoined the old lady up-stairs. "You have got a new doctor," remarked Janet. "Yes," replied Mrs Petre; "I have had a cold lately; and Mrs Danton did not like Mr Heywood, who is the leading man here. But this young man seems civil enough." "Well, I must be going now," said Janet presently. "You can be driven home," answered Mrs Petre; "the carriage is at the door now, I think, and it can come back for me." "No," said Janet; "it drove away a minute ago." "Drove away!" exclaimed Mrs Petre with a flash of her old temper, which as I have before said, was a very violent one; Janet's presence no doubt emboldening her to find fault with Mrs Danton's arrangements. "Go and see where it has been sent to." "Mrs Danton has sent the coachman to Lynton, to get a fowl for your dinner," said Janet, coming back after her inquiry. "I didn't want a fowl; I won't have a fowl! What does she mean by sending for a fowl for me?" 'When Janet departed, she left Mrs Petre irritated against Mrs Danton--a hopeful sign that self-assertion might yet enable her to shake off the trammels into which she has got herself. And Janet thereupon sat down and wrote a joyous little note to Mrs Aubrey Stanmore, which she posted. POST-LETTER ITEMS. As lately as 1839, each inhabitant of these islands only wrote on an average three letters per annum. In 1840, the year associated with the introduction of the penny post, the total number of letters rose to one hundred and sixty-nine millions, giving an average of seven letters to each person, or something more than double the average of the preceding year. Since then, the history of the British Post-office, the greatest emporium of letters in the world, has simply been the history of the growth of commerce and civilisation in our midst. Each year the number of letters has surely and steadily increased, until, in 1875, it reached the enormous total of a thousand and eight millions, or an average of thirty-one letters to each person in the United Kingdom. Besides these, there were more than eighty-seven millions of post-cards, and very nearly two hundred and eighty millions of newspapers and book packets; so that a grand total of nearly fourteen hundred millions of all descriptions of postal matter is reached. How few of us can realise at the first blush what a thousand millions represents!