Your friend little Frank Hallet is at Mrs. Blodget's. Do you remember how you used to play with him at Southport, and how he sometimes beat you? He seems to be a better little boy than he was then, but still he is not so good as he might be. This morning he had some very nice breakfast in his plate, but he would not eat it because his mamma refused to give him something that was not good for him; and so, all breakfast-time, this foolish little boy refused to eat a mouthful, though I could see that he was very hungry, and would have eaten it all up if he could have got it into his mouth without anybody seeing. Was not he a silly child? Little Pessima never behaved so,--oh no! There are two or three very nice little girls at Mrs. Blodget's, and also a nice large dog, who is very kind and gentle, and never bites anybody; and also a tabby cat, who very often comes to me and mews for something to eat. So you see we have a very pleasant family; but, for all that, I would rather be at home. And now I have written you such a long letter that my head is quite tired out; and so I shall leave off, and amuse myself with looking at some pages of figures. Be a good little girl, and do not tease Mamma, nor trouble Fanny, nor quarrel with Una and Julian; and when I come home I shall call you little Pessima (because I am very sure you will deserve that name), and shall kiss you more than once. N. H. If he said a few kind words to me, my father gave me a sense of having a strong ally among the great ones of life; and if I were ill, I was roused by his standing beside me to defy the illness. When I was seriously indisposed, at the age of three, he brought me a black doll, which I heard my mother say she thought would alarm me, as it was very ugly, and I had never seen a negro. I remember the much-knowing smile with which my father's face was indefinitely lighted up as he stood looking at me, while I, half unconscious to most of the things of this world, was nevertheless clutching his gift gladly to my heart. The hideous darky was soon converted by my nurse Fanny (my mother called her Fancy, because of her rare skill with the needle and her rich decorations of all sorts of things) into a beautifully dressed footman, who was a very large item in my existence for years. I thought my father an intensely clever man to have hit upon Pompey, and to have understood so well that he would make an angel. All his presents to us Old People, as he called us, were either unusual or of exquisite workmanship. The fairy quality was indispensable before he chose them. We children have clung to them even to our real old age. The fairies were always just round the corner of the point of sight, with me, and in recognition of my keen delight of confidence in the small fry my father gave me little objects that were adapted to them: delicate bureaus with tiny mirrors that had reflected fairy faces a moment before, and little tops that opened by unscrewing them in an