my husband’s fears have been really excited about some misadventure greater than usual, there has always been visible to me a certain gleam of complacence and pride in his fear. For already he sees in the boy, whom I am half disposed to keep a baby as long as possible, a man--the heir of his own personal qualities as well as his land. Little Derwent, however, has none of the sentimental qualities, which might be expected from an only child. He has indemnified himself in the oddest fashion for the want of those nursery friendships which sweeten the beginning of life. In the oddest fashion! I am almost ashamed to confess--I admit it with natural blushes and hesitation--that this little boy of ours is the most inveterate gossip that ever was born! Yes, there is no use disguising the fact, gossiping, plain, naked, and unsophisticated, is the special faculty of Derwent. He has all the natural childish thirst for a story, but he prefers to have his stories warm from the lips of the heroes and heroines of the same; and somehow everybody to whom he has access confides in the child. He goes through every corner of Hilfont, from cellar to attic, with his bold, quick step, and his bright, curious eyes, interested about every individual under the roof. Too young to feel any of those sentiments which detract from the value of a sympathizer--without either the condescension of a superior or the self-comparison of an equal--I find nobody who is not pleased and comforted by the child’s warm interest in their concerns; pleased and half amused as well--till, by habit, housekeeper and nurse, kitchenmaid and groom--for any efforts I might once have made to keep Derwent a proper little boy, circulating only in an orthodox round between the drawing-room and the nursery, have proved so totally fruitless, that I have given up the endeavor--repose a flattered but perfectly sincere confidence in their master’s little son. Nor is the village at all stoical to his attractions. He drops in at all the cottages as if he were the curate or the parish doctor--asks questions about everything--never forgets any special circumstances which may happen to have been told him--knows all about the old women’s marriages and the number of their children, and which one’s son has been wild and ’listed, and which one’s daughter is at service in Simonborough. He is ready for as many fairy tales as anybody will tell him; but nothing is so thoroughly interesting to Derwent as the people round about him and their homely lives. I began by being a little shocked at this propensity of his--then gradually grew amused at it--then tried my utmost to restrain that deep inquisitiveness which seemed inherent in him--and at last have come to accept it quietly as the child’s peculiarity, a part of himself. If the best object for the study of mankind is man, Derwent will, perhaps, some day turn out a great philosopher. At present he is the most sincere and simple-minded of little gossips, pursuing his