"I have secured Mrs. Fergusson as governess. What a charming and interesting woman she is! I feel I should like to do lessons myself with her. She has asked me if she cannot have Ruffie as a third pupil. Have you any objection to this? As you cannot answer quickly, and perhaps may feel rather bored at being asked to do it at all, I think I shall make the experiment. She is too wise a teacher to overwork so fragile and precocious a brain as Ruffie's. He does remind me so much of little Paul Dombey. But as his brain is so active, I think a little schoolroom knowledge and discipline would be good for him. He is wild with delight at the prospect. If any headaches come, I will stop the lessons at once. Josie and Georgie are all the better for hard work. They have been suffering from too many idle hours. I mean to keep them both busy and happy; so busy and interested in useful occupation, that they will have no time for mischief. Their energy or dynamic force has, I hope, been directed into the right channels. I feel this is rather à la governess; but if I'm not their governess, I have come here to give them the training they need, have I not? "Perhaps this is enough about the children. I am revelling in your wild Fells, and sweet luscious pasture lands, they are so intermingled that one cannot separate them, and it is the combination that I find so fascinating. What has surprised me is the number of people residing round the lake. I pictured your home in the wilds; but it is nothing of the sort. They say our neighbours are mostly summer visitors, and that in the winter they shut up their houses and go South, but I have come across several who do not do this. I have been to lunch with your old friend Mrs. Wykeham; I have made acquaintance with Colonel Dermot, who naturally is very curious over our marriage. I shall become a very good dissembler, for I have to parry and evade many an awkward question. "At present, I am content to be out of society. The Fells and lake when I want quiet meditation; the children when I want active recreation; and the house and its needs when I want work, are enough for me. And for friends, I have Mrs. Fergusson, whom I think a most charming personality; and lastly, but not least, our Rector, Mr. Bolland. I went to see his wife yesterday. They are new-comers, so you do not know them. She reminds me of a robin. Very small, very cheerful, with bright dark eyes and a small brown head. She is quite an invalid, and is on her back for years, if not for life. She is full of schemes for the good of the parishioners, and has enlisted me as her ally. But to the Rector, I owe a deep debt of gratitude, for without turning myself inside out, I may tell you that the whole pivot of my life has been changed since I came here, and it is through words of his that it has been done. I was beginning to worry over the training of your small people. Now I feel I need never worry again over anything!