"Flo and I made up a long letter to go with yours last week, mother—a joint concern. She couldn't have forgotten that. It was the day you had such a long call from old Mr. Brown." A recollection came to Mrs. Mackenzie, summoned up as such recollections often are, by a passing word. She started up, opened a drawer, and after some rummaging drew thence a stamped and addressed envelope. "How stupid of me! I remember now. Your speaking of Mr. Brown brought it back. When he came, I popped the letter in here to be safe, meaning to post it directly he was gone. Somebody must have pushed it out of sight afterwards, and I declare I never thought about it again until this moment." "Poor Euphrasia!" exclaimed Flo. "My dear, if she had taken the trouble to write home just a little oftener, we should soon have found out about it." Mrs. Mackenzie really had been pained by her eldest's prolonged silence. "Shall I post it now?" asked Ken. Mrs. Mackenzie debated, then wrote outside—"Just found this; ought to have gone off days ago." "Yes, do, Ken; and some of us will write in a day or two. I really can't to-day; I have so much to do. And there is Mrs. Landor coming in; so run away, Flo dear, because I want to speak to her particularly." Flo obeyed. And Mrs. Mackenzie received her visitor with a careworn expression, quite unconsciously and involuntarily assumed. Mrs. Landor was at all times so absolutely at leisure, so free to hear her friends' worries, and to bestow sympathy for the same—albeit with the sympathy went sometimes a less welcome word of warning, or even of reproof—that a temptation existed to make claims upon her sympathy, even without especial cause; and Mrs. Mackenzie occasionally yielded to this temptation. She did not so much as notice, being wrapped up in her own thoughts, that Mrs. Landor looked paler than usual, and that her air of kind attention was, to a slight degree, forced—as if the mind were trying to wander, and required reining in. The note from Euphrasia had to be shown first, with sundry comments on its tardy arrival, on its limited contents, and on her wish that Euphrasia cared more for home interests, less for mere pleasure. Mrs. Landor read the note, and said—"It does not give one the idea that she is having too much pleasure." "Well, no. I always thought she would be disappointed with those people. But of course a good many things are going on—sure to be, in a place like Clifton—and she does not somehow find time to write to us as she might." "She says nothing about the many things going on. How is Mr. Mackenzie to-day?"