Since she has been here, Alice has been occupied in writing to different relatives about the arrangements for her future home,--a matter that is still unsettled. She brings almost all her letters to us, to be corrected; for she has a great dread of orthographic errors. I was lying upon my couch, in the porch, yesterday, and through the low window I could see Alice as she sat at her writing-desk. Kate was sewing beside her, but just out of my sight. The young girl's hand flew over the paper, and a bright smile lighted up her face as she wrote. "This is a different kind of letter from yesterday's, I fancy," said Kate,--"not a business, but a pleasure letter." "Yes, so it is: for it is to Brother Walter, and all about you! When he wrote to tell me to love you and think much of your advice, and all that, he said something else, which requires a full answer, I can tell you!" Kate was silent. The letter was finished, and Alice sprang up, tired of her long application. I heard her kiss my sister, who then said, with a lame attempt at unconcern,-- "I suppose I am to look over your letter while you run about to rest yourself." Alice quickly answered, "No, thank you. I won't give you the trouble. The subject will make Walter blind to faults." "But do you suppose that I have no curiosity as to what you have said about me?" "I have said nothing but good. A little boasting about your conquests is the worst. I mention your Dumbiedikes most flatteringly. I don't make fun of him. I only want to scare Walter a bit." "But, Alice, you don't know the circumstances. Do let me see the letter; it may be important"---- "No, no! you shall never see it! Indeed, no!" cried the girl, running across the porch and down the garden. She did not want any fastidious caution to suppress the fine things she had said, or cause the trouble of writing another letter. So she ran out of hearing of the entreaties of her friend. Ben came to the door to say that Old Soldier and the cabriolet were ready for my daily drive. While we were gone, the boy would call and take Alice's letter to the post. The writer of it was out of sight and hearing. Here was a dilemma! Kate threw her thimble and scissors into her box without her usual care, and I heard her walking to and fro. She passed the window at every turn, and I could see that her cheek was very pale, her eyes fixed upon the floor, and her finger pressed to her lip. She was thinking intently, in perfect abstraction. I could see the desk with the open letter upon it. At every turn Kate drew nearer to it.