With what interest, too, she would follow each trifling occurrence of their daily life; the progress Nelly was making in her last group; its difficulties how would she ponder over, and wonder how to meet them! With what eager curiosity would she read the commonest details of the household, the dreary burden of a winter's tale! and how her heart bounded to hear of Frank the soldier although all the tidings were that he was with his regiment, but “spoke little of himself or the service.” Now, however, the glow of delight which a letter used to bring up was changed for a deep blush of anxiety and shame, anxiety, she knew not wherefore or how; of shame, because Nelly's writing on the address was quaint and old-fashioned; while the paper and the seal bespoke the very lowliest acquaintance with epistolary elegance. The letter she used to grasp at with a high-beating heart she now clutched with greater eagerness, but in terror lest others should see and mark its vulgar exterior! How differently, too, did the contents affect her! So long as they referred to herself, in her own latest narrative of her life, she read with avidity and pleasure. Nelly's innocent wonderment was a very delightful sensation; her affectionate participation in her happiness was all grateful; even her gentle warnings against the seductions of such a career were not unpleasing; but the subject changed to home, and what an alteration came over her spirit! How dark and dismal became the picture, how poverty-stricken each incident and event, what littleness in every detail, how insignificant the occupations that interested them! How great the surprise she felt at their interest in such trifles; how astonished that their hopes and fears, their wishes or their dreads, could take so mean a form! This came with peculiar force before her, from a paragraph that closed Nelly's last letter, and which ran thus: “Think of our happiness, dearest Kate! We have just seen one who saw you lately, one of your Florence acquaintances; and I believe I might go further and say friends, for the terms in which he spoke of you evinced sincere and true regard. It was so kind of him to find us out, just to come and tell us about you; indeed, he remained a day here for no other purpose, since his diplomatic duties were urging him to England with speed.”