"Cause No. 2: Strenuous attempts to move the social fabric, with the usual effect--loss of health and failure of 'mission,' self-dedicated. "Cause No. 3: Her refusal of the 'plain duty of womanhood,' and so on, which wrecks _your_ career, as far as we can see, without improving her own. However, she will doubtless plead that 'her intentions were good.' Harry, who has been looking over my shoulder (most improperly, I tell him), comes out with, 'D--n her intentions!' (or words to that effect). 'Women always say so when they've made a more destructive muddle of things than usual!' He has now been chased out of the room, so I proceed to finish my letter in peace. "As it _is_ nearing the end, I may treat you to a bit of news which you may regard as more important than the whole of the preceding despatch. Our mutual friend has a dearest chum in New Zealand, to whom she is devoted--the wife of a missionary clergyman. They live in your shockingly disturbed district, where for some years they have been converting the heathen with gratifying results. This Mary Summers is the best of young women, and, when she is not making 'moral pocket 'ankerchers,' writes to our Hypatia. I don't want to be irreverent (Harry says--well, never mind; but he doesn't like that kind of thing--says it's bad form), only the temptation was irresistible. Well, where was I? Oh! she says 'the field' is most interesting; the Maoris are a noble race--ten times more worthy of a life's devotion than our slum savages, and so on. Well, Hypatia, being discouraged about _them_, appears to me to incline to a Maori crusade. So that it is _possible_--mind, I go no further--that one of these days you might see 'the--er--one loved name,' or 'once loved,' as the case might be, in a passenger list. "More wonderful things have happened before now, and I certainly _did_ find her reading 'Ranulf and Amohia' the other day. "It is really _dreadful_ the length of this letter of mine. However, I must tell you a little news. Your successor at Massinger Court has got on very well with the county. Just at first, of course, people, after the manner of our cautious country-folk, fought shy of them. After a while, however, they were voted 'nice,' especially after Lord Lake, an ex-Governor, and his wife, Lady Maud, came down to stay with them, and it leaked out that they were related to the Lexingtons of Saxmundham. Not that _they_ mentioned the fact. Harry says the son is a capital fellow--rides, shoots, hunts, in most proper style, quiet in manner, but amusing, and plays polo and cricket better than most men.