beautiful neckties that had arrived that day from London. Against the materials I had picked out for the shirts they were stunning, and as they weren’t dear—considering the duty, the originality of the designs and the heavy silks they were made of—I let him send me five of them. There were the prettiest old pair of brass andirons and a fender in the window of an "antique" shop on Beacon Street that I used to stop and covet whenever I went into town. They were just the things for my fireplace, which looked rather shabby—although comfortable. I didn’t think I could afford them at first; but one day when I happened to be passing everything in the window was for sale at a discount of ten per cent. The man was very kind and obliging and let me charge them. They let you do that at all the shops, it seems; but I do think they might have a little more decency about sending in their bills. The first of November is three days off—and yet I ’ve heard from every cent I ’ve spent. I don’t quite know what to do about it, as my allowance—even when it comes—won’t be nearly enough to pay for everything; and of course I ’ll have to keep some of it for my board and washing and schoolbooks, and all the other little expenses one can’t very well steer clear of. Before going to bed the last two nights I ’ve spent an hour or more in itemizing everything and adding it all up, and then checking off the people who have to be paid immediately, the ones who could wait a short time, and the ones about whom there is no particular hurry. This makes the financial outlook a little more possible, but not much. And yet Duggie had the _nerve_ to say he thought my allowance _generous_! Another matter that I try not to think of is the fact that very soon we are to be given what is called "hour examinations" in all our studies. I never imagined they would come so—well, abruptly; when we began it seemed as if we would take much longer to learn enough to be examined in. To tell the truth—with the exception of my English course—I haven’t become deeply interested as yet in the lectures. After the first few times I gave up trying to take notes; everything I wrote seemed so unimportant. And I haven’t done any of the reading, either. They expect you to do a lot of reading at home or in the library, and hold you responsible for it in the examination. The man Berrisford and I have in history is a dreamy old thing who goes into thoughtful trances every now and then in the middle of a sentence, while three hundred and fifty stylographic pens hang in mid-air waiting to harpoon the next word. One day, after telling us to read a certain work on the feudal system, he added in a kind of vague, helpless way,—