Agnes writes rather laboriously--she is no penwoman; and what she writes is just about nothing at all--a domestic letter, full of implied tenderness and exuberant hopes, through which you can scarcely see the sober and solemn solicitude which has made Harry’s wife a woman deeper than her nature, and elder than her years. But the heart of the young wife is very light now, and she looks at the sleeve of her best gown with a smile, as she pauses to arrange the next sentence, and beats upon her hand with the feather of her pen. Little Harry seated at her feet, which he makes a half-way house between two corners, tears away with appetite at a great orange, refreshing himself, before, on hands and knees, he starts upon another circumnavigation. Looking down upon him lovingly, the young mother concocts her next sentence with triumphant success; and you can guess, without looking over her shoulder, what a pretty outline grows upon her paper, under that inspired pen, which can write so quickly now. It is not a daguerreotype of little Harry which his mother will send to his father; but indeed one cannot tell what height of excellence and warm expression this very daguerreotype can attain to, when the sunshine which makes the portraiture is not the light of common day, but of love. Nor are you working either, little dark-haired Violet! Alas, it is no sensible educational purpose which has carried you into the corner, with one defiant foot planted firmly before the other, and those restless hands crossed demurely behind. Not a respectable lesson gravely administered and received, as lessons should be, but a challenge proudly given to Rose to “fickle” you, who are very confident in this particular of spelling, that you cannot be “fickled.” A slight curve upon the brow of Rose, as she hunts up and down through all those pages for hard words, intimates that she is a little “fickled” herself; and Violet raises her head more proudly, and Rose laughs with greater mirth as each successive word is achieved, though now and then the elder trifler discovers that she is idle, and wonders why it is, and remembers the cause which has made their industry less urgent, with new smiles and joy.