Nelly; it's working, and _hard working_ at it. Her dress is the funniest thing you ever saw. When I, say funny, I do not mean it makes you laugh--far from it--but that it is extremely odd and peculiar. At first, Mary used to wear the cast-off things of two Indian girls, who are here and never go home; but since she has grown tall she is packed up in Mrs. R.'s old trumpery finery, and flits about like a thin shadow of what the lady principal was six months previously. No one, however, is cruel enough to quiz Mary. Her sorrow throws a sacred protection over her that is better than any shield, and even Miss St. Ledger (with her pert turn-up nose) forgets the sharpness of her tongue in her presence. Amy, besides, wouldn't allow any one to slight her. They tell me, Nelly, that when "breaking-up day" comes round, and all are skipping about in the wild joy of being fetched home, poor Mary sits silently apart, shunning everybody--avoiding the windows where all the girls are heaped together, watching the arrival of the carriages; and that she almost runs away from dear Amy's caresses, rejecting her loving endeavors to cheer her, as if they were a source of pain to her. Dear Amy always stops the last with her; but, when it comes to her turn to go away, then poor Mary flings herself round her devoted friend's neck, and bursts into one long flood of tears, as if her heart was breaking. May we never know such grief as that, Nelly! Only think, dearest, how cheerless must the holidays be to the poor homeless girl! The reassembling of school, which school-girls dread so much, must come back to her with all the delight of holidays to us. Once Amy asked for Mary to go home with her, but the lady principal objected to it. It would take too much money and trouble to "get her up." Amy said she should wear her things; but Mrs. Rodwell still objected. She was afraid (Meggy says) to "trust the security of her debt out of sight!" Poor Mary has never left the Princesses' College now for four years, except at such times when she has been out walking with the school! This is very sad and terrible, Nelly, and we ought to think ourselves very fortunate, that we have such good papas and mammas, and that our positions in life are very different from that of poor Mary Owen! But I have written myself quite miserable, and you too, I am afraid, Nelly; so no more at present, dear, from Your little stupid KITTY CLOVER. P. S. Excuse haste. P. S. Why don't you write? * * * * * MRS. MUDLAW'S RECIPE FOR POTATO PUDDING; OR, GOSSIP FROM OUR TOWN. BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE BEDOTT PAPERS." [The following story is not now published for the first time; but we republish it at the request of many subscribers, who want it in an endurable form, and because we wish to preserve a story so characteristic of the peculiar talent of its amiable writer, whose memoir we published in our numbers for July and August, 1853.]