L. A. T.--We should advise you to read Homer's "Odyssey," translated by Butcher and Lang, and if you find difficulty in understanding it, a "Primer" on the subject as well. But we think you will enjoy it. As for Plato, read "The Trial and Death of Socrates," translated by Dean Church, and consult a small history of Greece on the period (399 B.C.) Do not attempt too much at once, nor read Plato's deeper "Dialogues" to begin with. Your letter, which you ask us to criticise, is clearly written, with only one mistake in spelling. MISS BEALEY.--We undertake no communication by post (see "Rules" in our November part and elsewhere). You will find the "Home Reading Union" an excellent society; apply to the Secretary, Surrey House, Victoria Embankment. Consult this column for amateur societies occasionally mentioned. MISS FLORENCE E. SMITH calls attention to the "Bedford Practising Society," of which she is secretary. She will be delighted to send particulars to any fellow reader of the GIRL'S OWN PAPER. Address to her at Winfrith, The Crescent, Bedford. HOFFNUNG.--Many thanks for your letter. By all means try again. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENCE. MADEMOISELLE MARGUERITE GONTARD (address "Nikopal Mariopol Co., Mariopol, South Russia, Engineer Prauss for M. Gontard"), wishes to be put into communication with a young English lady, resident in either of the continents of Asia, Africa, America, or Australia. She desires to correspond with her either in English or French. We thank Mademoiselle Gontard for her pretty English letter. She may certainly write to us in French if she prefers to do so. "ERIN-GO-BRAGH" would like to correspond with a French girl of about her own age--twenty-one. FLORENCE writes a kind letter from which we quote a sentence. "I am wondering whether some little girl belonging to the readers of our GIRL'S OWN PAPER would care to have an older friend to write to; she would receive in return sympathy if in trouble, and an interest would be taken in all she might care to confide to one whom she could perhaps learn to look upon in the light of an elder sister." We regret that it is against our rules to undertake direct postal communication; but if any little girl sends us her address, we will insert it here for "Florence" to see. Perhaps some lonely, or motherless, or sad little girls might be glad to find a friend. OUR OPEN LETTER BOX. LA PETITE VIOLETTE wishes to find a poem with a refrain to each verse "Belle Marquise." She saw a quotation from it as a heading to a chapter in a book entitled _Woman and the Shadow_. MISS M. A. C. CRABB and ELPIS answer LENNOX by referring the verse she quotes-- "Alas! how easily things go wrong," to a poem in the 19th chapter of George Macdonald's "Phantastes: a Faerie Romance." They agree in saying that the second verse is not by the same pen.