“I have your four last letters before me,” wrote she, “and it would be difficult for a stranger on reading them to declare which of the two pupils under your care was your especial charge, and which a merely adventitious element. Not so if the question were to be, Which of the two engrossed all your interest and engaged all your sympathy? We read, it is true, of dear Ada’s temper, her kindness, her generosity, and her gentleness--traits which we all recognise, and many of which, we surmise, must have been sorely tried, but of which you can speak with a most fitting and scholastic moderation. Far otherwise, however, does your pen run on when Kate O’Hara is the theme. You are not, perhaps, aware that you are actually eloquent on thia subject. You never weary of telling us of her marvellous progress; how she already begins to speak French; how she imitates those mysterious pothooks your countrymen persist in using as writing; how she plays her scales, and what a talent she has for drawing. Do you forget the while that these are very secondary matters of interest to us all here? Do you forget that in her companionship with my niece our whole object was the spring which might be derived from her healthy peasant-nature and light-heartedness? To convert this child into a miracle of accomplishment could serve no purpose of ours, and assuredly would conduce to no advantage of her own. On this latter point you have only to ask yourself, What will become of all these attainments when she goes back--as she will go back--to her life of poverty and privation? Will her piano make her better company for the pig? Will her French reconcile her to the miseries of a mud cabin? “She is the child of a poor cottier, a creature so humble that even here in this benighted State we have nothing his equal in indigence; and she will one day or other have to go back to the condition that my brother, with I fear a very mistaken kindness, took her from. You will see, therefore, how misjudging is the interest you are now bestowing. It is, however, the injustice to my niece which more nearly concerns me; and with this object I inform you that if I am not satisfied as to the total change in your system, I shall certainly be prepared to recommend to my brother one of two courses: a change in Ada’s governess, or the dismissal of Ada’s companion. It is but fair to you to say I prefer the latter.