"But, mother, I am so demure and quiet in my tastes that I care very little for all the glories of the old world, and I pine to go to you, and to be at home again, much to my dear husband's chagrin, who is disappointed that I do not enter with more enthusiasm into all the beauties of art and nature that we have seen in our travels. Mrs. Conway applauds everything, but I believe it is the fashion to do so--is it not? and _she_ is _so_ fashionable, you know! I honestly appreciate all I see that is appreciable, I think, but not with the keen pleasure of most travelers. I am a home-bird, I suppose--one of the little timid brown birds that hop contentedly about the quiet garden paths, and though having wings, do not care to fly. "'The world of the affections is my world, Not that of man's ambition.'" "Mother, do you remember when I wrote you from Brighton, England, about the little child in whom I was so strangely interested?--whose great resemblance to some one of whom I could not think puzzled and interested me so? Well, I have met again with the little darling here, and have visited his grandparents at their elegant villa just outside the city--very old people, I believe I wrote you they were--and devoted to this child, who is, so I am told, the last of the race and name, which has been in its time a very noble, as it is now, a very old one. They are very wealthy and very proud people--the old baronet, Sir Robert Willoughby, the haughtiest old aristocrat I ever met. His wife, Lady Marguerite, is of a sweeter, gentler type, yet, I fancy, very much in awe of her stern lord. Little Earle--the heir of this great wealth and proud title--is one of the most interesting little children I ever saw--wonderfully bright and intelligent. He has taken a flattering liking to me, and is always, when in my company, exerting his childish powers for my entertainment. We visit quite frequently--"charming people," Aunt Conway calls them. The little boy prattles to me, sometimes in an incoherent sort of fashion, of his mother, who seems to be a sort of faint, almost forgotten image in his baby mind. He is not more than three or four years old--well grown for his age. I have observed (Bruce, teasing fellow, says I have only fancied it,) that they do not like to hear the little boy speak of his mother. They never mention her themselves, and I have been given to understand that she is dead, but they have never said so in plain terms. The little one does not at all resemble his grandparents.