in the bill enclosed, and I have filled in the cheque accordingly. Of course if you change your mind I shall try to accommodate you if I am not full up. I cannot help signing myself "Yours sorrowfully, "MARTHA RUSSEN. "N.B.--I may say that the other boarders are very shocked." Poor old Rusty! She is really not half a bad sort, and I am glad to have known her: almost as glad as I am to get away from her. It is my misfortune, I suppose, to be "nervy," and the sound and sight of Madam in these latter days was enough to bring on an attack. I turned to the letter from Rose, which was short, sharp and sisterly--sisterly, I mean, in its shameless candour and freedom from reserve. Rose rather affects the role of the superior person, and has patronised me ever since I discovered her. This is what she wrote: "MY DEAR GRACE, "I am not sure that I ought not to write '_disgrace_.' I always have said that you are as mad as the March hare in 'Alice' and now I am sure of it. Your letter has not one line of sense in it from beginning to end except that in which you suggest that I may come to see you some time. So I may, if the funds ever run to it. It will be an education to do so. I would go to see you in your native haunts just as I would go to see any other natural freak in which I might be interested. But I won't pay ordinary railway fare, so that's flat. If the railway companies won't reduce their charges by running cheap excursions as they do for other exhibitions, I shall not come. For if you are not an exhibition (of crass folly) I don't know what an exhibition is. However, you have a bit of money and a trade (sorry! I mean a profession) at your finger-ends, so I can only hope you'll not starve whilst your native air is bringing you to your senses. I will see to your various commissions, and if I can be of further use to you up here, "I am, as I have ever been, "Your humble, but not always obedient servant, "ROSE." This concluded what may be termed the social portion of my correspondence, and I took up the other letters with less zest. One, a mere formal acknowledgment of my changed address, was from the bankers who have the privilege of taking care of my money, and who have never manifested any sense of oppression under the responsibility. Nevertheless, two hundred and forty odd pounds is something to fall back upon, and it looms large when it represents savings; and in any case it is all I have except the interest which comes to me from a few small investments--all that was rescued from the wreck of my father's fortunes. Well, well! I am a good deal richer than some very wealthy people I have met.