The matter is quite settled as to Lady Jemima's orphan-house. She is to be the head of the family, with a suitable establishment, and is to begin with six young girls, not of the very poorest, but from clergymen's families, and the like. This is by the Bishop's advice, who says that less is done for this class than for any other. One is to be the child of an artist, a great friend of Mr. Van Dyke's, and worse than an orphan, her mother having deserted her child, and the poor father, all but distracted, desires to go abroad, but has no one with whom to leave the poor young maid, who is only six years old. Mr. Van Dyke desires the privilege of paying her necessary expenses (the care and safety he gracefully says can never be paid for), and he hath given Lady Jemima a hundred pounds. It shows how really humbled dear Lady Jemima is, that she took the money without a demur. She is much more cheerful since she hath been engaged with this plan, and rejoices with trembling in the hope of present forgiveness and favor. She has long chats with Dame Yeo, and I think the old woman hath done her much good. Every one notices the difference in her, and even her face is changed. She does not see Walter often, and when she does, she meets him as a brother: but I can see it costs her a pang. Ah me! It seems very hard that the happiness of one should cost the misery of another: but I believe what she says is true, and that Walter would never have thought of her, even if I had never come to the Court to live. She is two years older than he, for one thing, and a woman always seems older than a man at the same age; and then all their notions are so different. The only wonder to me is, how she should ever have fancied him. _December 20._ Betty's picture is nearly done, and is wondrously beautiful. Some of the family think it flattered, but I do not. It is only that Mr. Van Dyke has seized upon her most lovely expression that which her face wears when she is saying her prayers, or nursing her little brothers, or looking upon something which pleases her—a sunset, or the like. Mr. Van Dyke himself thinks it the best picture he hath painted in these parts. When it was finished, Betty looked, at it long and wistfully. "Is it really like me?" she asked. "Indeed it is," said I. "I am glad of it," she said, and took another long look at the picture. "My little brothers will see it and know what I was like, and I think papa will love to look at it."