“We are in for a step-mother, sure,” he wrote, “and may as well make the best of it. Try to imagine father in love, will you? and such a love! Truly she is ‘a very remarkable person,’ as you will say when you see her. Just think of father’s marrying a red-haired woman of forty, with a limp and glass eye, which looks at you with a squint, and a crack in her voice, which sounds like Ettie Armstrong’s old piano, and quite as many aches and pains as Aunt Christine herself! But then, she’s nice, and I like her ever so much, while the governor,—well, it is something wonderful to see how far gone he is; and I tell you, girls, one and all, that if you do not treat this beauty with proper attention there will be the old Nick to pay! She will take your breath away at first, for, after all I have said, you have no idea how she looks, and Alice must hold on to her little nose, and Aunt Christine may as well lay in a fresh supply of pills and Crown Bitters, and get her a new galvanic battery. She’ll need them all to steady her nerves after the shock the bride will give her. I shall be glad to be home once more, though I do not believe I am greatly improved with foreign travel. I still shake down my pants, and say ‘by Jove,’ and don’t believe I shall be ‘so disgusted with New York because it looks so new and backwoodsey,’ or that I shall constantly quote ‘dear, charming _Par-ee_.’ In short, I am just as much a ‘_clown_’ as ever, but by way of recompense I mean, if I can, to bring you the nicest kind of a travelled chap, Robert Macpherson, whom I met in Rome, and like so much, even if he does part his hair in the middle, and carry an eyeglass, and put perfumery into his bath, and wear ruffled night-shirts buttoned behind. He’s a good fellow, with money, and a profession, too. He is an artist, and his father was cousin to Lord Somebody or other, and I mean to persuade him to come to America with me for you girls to pull caps about. So you’ve something to live for besides the new mamma, to whom I must pay my respects as soon as I have finished this letter. So no more at present from your brother, GODFREY.” * * * * * The young scamp chuckled with delight as he read over this letter and thought what a bombshell it would be in the staid household at Schuyler Hill. “I haven’t written a lie either,” he said; “I only told them to _think of_ father’s fancying such a person, and they will think of it, and Aunt Christine will have a fit and swallow more than a quart of her bitters, and take a shock strong enough to knock her down, and Jule’s back will be up, and Alice’s nose, and Em will cry, and Tiffe will snort her indignation, and there’ll be thunder raised generally.”