I had been turning over a heap of still unopened letters as I spoke: there were four-two directed in Hilary's handwriting, one from Lady Helen Carr, the third had its face turned to the table; my father took it up, and held it close to his eyes. "Is not this from Charlie?" he said rather quickly; "open it, Janet. Did you know that there was a letter from Charlie, my dear?" (to my mother).

"Yes, I saw it, but I put it aside till I had read Hilary's. Charlie's letters are always so short and unsatisfactory. You had better read it aloud now, Janet."

Comparisons between Charlie's and Hilary's letters were always painful. My first glance showed me that the letter I held was no longer than the majority of its predecessors, and, expecting a string of common-place excuses for not writing, I prepared myself reluctantly to read.

"There can be no news about the scholarship yet," my father remarked, "for the examination was not to begin till yesterday; but perhaps he will tell us how he got through the first day's trial. Let us hear, Janet."

"Dearest Mother," " I read, "will you be glad to hear that I am coming home to-morrow evening? I

know you don't like surprises, but, as the letters reach you early, and as I shall not be in London till ten o'clock at night, I think the intervening hours will be time enough for you and Nesta to tire yourselves in making ready for me. Give my love to my father, and tell him that I hope he won't be disappointed to hear that I have given up all thought of trying for the Craven Scholarship. I did not go into the schools to-day. I will explain my reason for this change of purpose when we meet. Love to the girls. Your affectionate CHARLIE.

"P. S. I have not been very well lately, but what has determined me against going in for the scholarship is that one of the examiners is a detestable old fogey to whom I have a special aversion. The fact of having to be examined by him would have entirely prevented my doing myself justice.' "Not going to try for the scholarship!" cried my father.

Coming home to-night, without giving us time to air his bed!" exclaimed my mother, and then an ominous silence fell on the group assembled round the breakfast-table. Once or twice before, Charlie's short letters had brought down such silences. My mother, refusing all Nesta's pressing offers of tea and toast,

sat looking at my father. My father took his breakfast as usual, but his face settled into the stern gravity which we used to call the "school look," and the veins in his large forehead swelled till I could trace the course of each throbbing blue line. No one spoke till the meal was over and my father rose to leave the room; then my mother took up Charlie's letter, and glancing down it, remarked in a faltering voice, " He says he has not been very well lately."

My father, who had reached the door, turned back and stood behind my mother's chair.

"We shall be glad to see poor Charlie," she continued. "It is more than a year since we have seen him. I don't think we need make any difficulty about the bed; I always keep the beds well-aired, and I will have a fire lighted in his room directly."

It was in the same tone of voice, and with gentle irrelevant remarks of the same nature, that my mother had been wont to try in old times to avert my father's displeasure when she feared that it was impending over the boys. We had always considered it a good sign when he stood still to listen to her. Nesta thought so well of his attention now, that she ventured to insinuate two little hands into one of his, and whis"You are not angry with Charlie, papa?"

per,

"Angry!" There was a pause, and my father's voice, which had sounded harshly, took a deeper tone. "I don't know yet, Nesta, how much of what I am feeling now is anger for the disappointment to my own pride; how much just displeasure at my poor boy's folly. Let me go, Nesta. Let me go, dear love; before evening I shall have found out. It is well that the post comes in early, and that he will arrive late ; you will have time for your preparations to receive him rightly, and I for mine."

He left us and retired to the den; and my mother, after giving Nesta permission to open and read Lady Helen Carr's letter, went up to her own room. I had then leisure to open Hilary's letter to me. It was a pleasant letter for a sister to receive from a brother on her birthday; it showed so plainly that he had been thinking of me; it was full of allusions to past birthdays of mine and his—childish pleasures, childish jokes, which even I had forgotten, and which could only have lingered in a heart as faithful and true to home memories as Hilary's. Ernestine had finished reading her two letters, when I looked up from mine. With a mischievous smile on her face, she handed me Hilary's note first. The paper contained only a few lines:

"DEAR NESTA,-If you have not procured the waistbands for which I gave you a commission, don't get them. Miss Lester has changed her mind; she says she can buy what she wants at Bangor, and prefers not to trouble either you or me. In hastethe letters are gone, I shall have to send an express with this. I would not have the belts sent to Miss Lester now on any account. Keep them for yourself if they are bought—I will pay for them.

"Yours,

" HILARY."

"Much ado about nothing," was my comment on the epistle.

"More ado about nothing," Nesta laughed, handing me Lady Helen's.

I retired with it to the window, and knit my brows. Lady Helen's letters were always a puzzle to me-it was a puzzle why she kept up a correspondence with us at all. Her letter of that morning began with an account of her reception at Morfa, where she had been staying a fortnight, when she began to write. A few of her words called up a picture such as all Hilary's carefully exact descriptions of the same scenes had failed to give. As I read, I approached with her to