The youngest Miss Gordon has her faults. Chief of these, is an undesirable bluntness and impudent recklessness of speech--a deplorable fashion of introducing the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, no matter how unwelcome or how naked--and a queer, half-absent, and wholly disconcerting way of thinking aloud. Her friends (who are many) declare that she is young, and will grow out of these peculiarities, and at any rate she is by far the most popular of the three sisters! One gusty March morning, the sea displayed towering grey waves, with cream-coloured crests, the rain beat noisily against the window in which Jessie Gordon stood waiting for the kettle to boil, and watching for the postman. Here he came at last, striding up the paved path in his shining oilskins, and with a thundering bang, bang! he is gone. “The paper, a coal bill, and an Indian letter,” said Jessie to Fairy, who, wrapped in a shawl, was cowering over the fire. “I’ll take them upstairs whilst you watch the kettle.” Mrs. Gordon always breakfasted in bed, to “save trouble,” she declared, but to whom she omitted to mention. She turned the letters over languidly, and exclaimed-- “One from India from Sara Brande. Wonders will never cease! What can she want? Well, let me have my tea at once, and when I have read her epistle, I will send it down to you. And, here--you can take the paper to Fairy.” Jessie returned to her tea-making--she and Honor took the housekeeping week about. In the middle of breakfast, Susan stalked into the room--an unusual occurrence--and said-- “Miss Jessie, the mistress is after pulling down the bell-rope. I thought the house was on fire. You are to go upstairs to her this minute.” Jessie was absent about a quarter of an hour, and when she appeared, beaming, and with a letter in her hand, she had such an air of suppressed exultation, that it was evident to her sisters, even before she opened her lips, that the long-expected “something” had happened at last. CHAPTER V. AN INDIAN LETTER. “Great, great news, girls!” cried Jessie, waving the letter over her head. “Mrs. Brande--I mean Aunt Sally--has written to ask one of us to go out and live with her, and she seems quite certain that her offer will be accepted, for she encloses a cheque for outfit and passage-money. It is a short invitation, too; whoever elects to see India must start within the next fortnight.” Honor and Fairy gazed at one another incredulously, and Fairy’s delicate complexion changed rapidly from pink to crimson, from crimson to white. “I’ll read it to you,” continued Jessie, sitting down as she spoke. “The writing is peculiar, and some of the words are only underlined four times. Ahem! “‘Rookwood, Shirani. “‘DEAR SISTER-IN-LAW,