disappointed in it, for there was really nothing in it that might not have been proclaimed round the breakfast-table, like the public letters from that quarter of the family who were at Rawul Pindee. It told of deep-sea soundings and investigations into the creatures at the bottom of the sea, of Portuguese men-of-war, and albatrosses; and there were some orders to scientific-instrument makers for her to send to them--a very improving letter, but a good deal like a book of travels. Only at the end did the writer say, ‘I hope my little daughter is happy among her cousins, and takes care to give her aunt no trouble, and to profit by her kind care. Your three cousins here, Mary, Lily, and Maggie, are exceedingly nice girls, and much interested about you; indeed, they wish I had brought you with me.’ Dolores read her letter over and over and over, for the pleasure of having something all to herself, and never communicated a word about the miscroscopic monsters her father had described, but she drew her head back and reflected, ‘He little knows,’ when he spoke of her being happy among her cousins. Lady Merrifield likewise received a letter, about which she did not say much to her children, but Miss Mohun, who had had a much longer one, came over for the day to read this to her sister. In point of fact, she had paired in childhood with her brother Maurice. She had been his correspondent in school and college days, and being a person never easily rebuffed, she had kept up more intercourse with him and his wife than any others of the family had done, and he had preserved the habit of writing to her much more freely and unreservedly than to any one else. So the day after the New Zealand letters came, just as the historical reading and needlework were in full force, the schoolroom door was opened, and a brisk little figure stood there in sealskin coat and hat. Up jumped mamma. ‘Oh! Jenny! Brownie indeed! How did you come? You didn’t walk from the station?’ ‘Yes, why not? Otherwise I should have been too soon, and have disturbed the lessons,’ said Aunt Jane, in the intervals of the greeting kisses. ‘All well with the Indian folks?’ ‘Oh yes; they’ve come back from the emerald valleys of Cashmere, and Alethea has actually sent me a primrose--just like an English one--that they found growing there. They did enjoy it so. Have you heard from Maurice?’ ‘Yes, I thought you would like to hear about Phyllis, so, having enjoyed it with Ada, I brought it over for further enjoyment with you.’ ‘That’s a dear old Brownie! We’ve a good hour before dinner. Shall we read it to the general public, or shall we adjourn to the drawing-room?’ “Oh! I assure you it is very instructive. Quite as much so as Miss Sewell’s ‘Rome.’” And Aunt Jane, whom Gillian had aided in disrobing herself of her outdoor garments, was installed by the fire, and unfolded a whole volume of thin, mauve sheets in Mr. Mohun’s tiny Greek-looking handwriting.