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Now Alice Newton has fallen ill, and your friend Mr. Shipley is unhappy about her. Colonel Newton so far has not realised that wailing robes with reason might be donned. I felt sure that she would collapse. She was always a fugitive creature, and of late she has looked intangible as one of Maeterlinck's dream-women. She said to me the other day, 'You see, one can be dead and be still going about and people don't know that one is dead. That is the curious part of it.' Her old nurse, who was the child's nurse too, appeared when I went to see Alice yesterday, and, though I tried to stop her, she would, undeterred by Mr. Shipley's presence, tell me of Alice's misery since the child died. Mrs.

· Newton, M'm, she would come wandering up into the room that was the day-nursery, at three and four o'clock in the morning, and walk up and down and cry by the hour. Mr. Shipley is devoted to his sister, and I am very sorry for him. When you come to London you must hold out the hand of friendship to him, He asks for Tolcarne news frequently.

Would you like a copy of Willughby's Birds—* The Ornithology of Francis Willughby of Middleton in the County of Warwick, Esq.'—the text in English, London, 1678? Laura met me the other evening on the doorstep with the book under my arm. I saw it lying in a dim, dusty shop to which I repaired in search of something else, and I had not the heart to leave it. Laura hates old books, looking upon them but as dust-catchers and germ-carriers. When reigning at Tolcarne she put John Florio into a room with a sulphur candle, to my intense indignation, The Willughby is hardly a pocket-volume, and I could not conceal it, as, to save an argument, I would have done. "What in the world is the use of such a book to you, Elizabeth ?' Laura inquired. 'I shall give it to Richard,' I said; so don't turn me into a liar by refusing it. The Willughby will be happier at Tolcarne than in Hans Place.

Publication brings strange shelf-fellows, I thought, as I glanced at the books in our book-case this morning. Laura's Marie Corelli, Edna Lyall and then Herrick, and Catullus all in a row. If contrast is attractive, Maeterlinck and Dr. Johnson, cheek by jowl, as we have them here, are desirable. (Dr. Johnson : 'Sir, you are a fool.' Maeterlinck: 'I am not happy. I am not happy.') For myself, as in the long run I prefer a chime to a clash, a harmony to a discord, I have half a mind to carry Maeterlinck to Mr. Vivian presently. Mr. Vivian (a figure of

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silence not of speech, to quote his wife) buys a Burne-Jones whenever he can get one. When Burne-Jones is on the wall Maeterlinck should be in the book-case. Do invent a conversation between M. Maeterlinck and Dr. Johnson, and mention too what M. Maeterlinck would say to a Hogarth, and Dr. Johnson to a Burne-Jones.

Now, good-bye. I have rather written out my eyil temper and no longer feel that everyone is trying to beat the record of his or her past troublesomeness. I begin to reproach myself also for my denunciation of Laura. However, it shall go (there is nothing like a remorse for paring down ill-temper to reasonable dimensions), and please don't be a hundred years answering. I am impatient to hear what you think about the Harry-Cynthia-Laura-Sir Augustus affair. I am rather inclined to expect the worstCynthia being a childish creature, used to authority, and of the stuff of which victims are made, whilst Laura, in her quiet way, is obstinate as the Pope's mule. Sometimes I wish that Harry would propose to Cynthia, and have done with it. But he thinks by so doing he might lose the little he has got. I don't, as you see, know what to say or to leave unsaid, and don't agree with myself for five minutes consecutively. I shall try and reduce my thoughts to order by reading your little old book. Laura dines with Mrs. Carstairs to-night. Harry is bidden somewhere whither Mrs. Vivian is conveying Cynthia. Sir Augustus is decorating with his presence a Primrose League Entertainment, so the family and the family's adjunct are happily disposed of, and I shall spend the evening with Trelawney and 'The Voyage of Italy.' Your obedient servant, your loving sister,

ELIZABETH.

XVI.

Sir Richard Etchingham to Miss Elizabeth Etchingham.

MY DEAR ELIZABETH,—You shall have a short and prompt answer for once. Why can't you send Cynthia here along with Stephen? It would put her out of harm's way for a while at any rate, and give you time and occasions to test your conjectures.

This is sickening stuff about poor marriages. What had Maggie and I before we married, and what had we not afterwards ? — There—you know there are some things I cannot put on paper even to you.

Don't be worried out of your evening sessions with Harry, whatever you do; and be firm. The head of the family is with you for whatever that office is worth in this present Kali Yug.

Yours ever,

R. E.

XVII.

From Lady Etchingham, 83 Hans Place, to Sir Richard

Etchingham, Tolcarne.

MY DEAR RICHARD,—I have not seen your letter, but I understand from Elizabeth that you have kindly invited Cynthia to Tolcarne for Whitsuntide.

I am sure that Cynthia would be very pleased to be with Margaret, but I am afraid that I do not quite see how it can be managed just at present. Elizabeth, who has been very much taken up with Mrs. Newton lately, proposes, I now suddenly hear, to start off with her to the sea for a few days next week. You know what Elizabeth is when she takes people up violently, and how impulsive. Mr. Shipley, Mrs. Newton's brother, called last evening to say that the doctors suggest change of air for Mrs. Newton, whose health has been, I believe, very unsatisfactory lately from insomnia and nervous exhaustion, and would Elizabeth be persuaded to go too, as his sister had an invalid's fancy to have Elizabeth with her. I do not myself see the need, as if Mrs. Newton does not consider her husband sufficient escort, there is a sister-in-law-a Mrs. Ware--quite willing to be of use and accustomed to illness. I remember her telling me the first time I met her that Mr. Ware had been completely paralysed for five years before he died. Also, as I told Elizabeth, I think it quite possible that Mr. Shipley just suggested her accompanying Mrs. Newton, thinking she might enjoy the trip. She often speaks of her dislike of London, which is, I think, a mistake. Mrs. Newton, I fear, is on the verge of melancholia, and would really be best left with her husband, who no doubt understands her temperament.

If Elizabeth is to be away for several days with her friend, I feel quite sure that Cynthia would not consent to leave me wholly alone, much as I should like her to have the pleasure of a visit to Tolcarne. My eyes have troubled me a good deal lately, and I have rheumatic gout in my hands (from weakness, Dr. Bowles says), and to sit alone, unoccupied, though I am quite willing to

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undergo it if Elizabeth thinks it will amuse her to be with Mrs. Newton, is not, I know, what others would choose for me. I really quite think also that for Cynthia's own sake it is better for her to remain quietly at home till the weather is more settled. You have had heavy rains I hear from Mrs. Follitt, and dear Tolcarne, of course, is damp. I always considered the roof faulty. I hope you have had no recurrence of your old attacks, and with love to Margaret and yourself,

Believe me,

Affectionately yours,

LAURA F. ETCHINGHAM.

XVIII.

From Miss Elizabeth Etchingham to Sir Richard Etchingham.

DEAREST DICKORY,—Thanks very much for your letter. It was just exactly what I wanted, and it has stiffened me. Cynthia would be perfectly content at Tolcarne with Margaret and Stephen, and he and she can travel down together. I will propose it at once, and I should hardly think that Laura's hard-worked team of phantom lions could be trotted out to block this path.

I am summoned to the drawing-room, and rumour reports Mr. Shipley's arrival with a message from Alice. So here endeth this epistle.

Your loving sister,

ELIZABETH.

P.S.-Send me a supplementary letter soon, and in it wrap up a recipe for patience and a right judgment in all things.

XIX.

Sir Richard Etchingham to Miss Elizabeth Etchingham.

MY DEAR ELIZABETH,—Let a pleasant thing come first. I shall be delighted to have Willughby's Birds; the rather that I had almost forgotten what home birds are like. Did I ever tell you that among the great Akbar's accomplishments was a lively interest in the natural history of Hindustan ? The work of encyclopædic Indian statistics (or as near statistics as Asiatic scribes could get) compiled under his charge includes elaborate figures of Indian plants. I wish the ingenious Mr. Traill would add a dialogue between Elizabeth and Akbar, wherever they ought to be, to his ‘New Lucian.' Akbar deserves to be in the eagle's eye in the sphere of Jupiter, whether Dante's principles could make room for him there or not. I am not so sure about Elizabeth. Akbar could have taught her not to scamp the supplies of stores and ammunition to her fleet. If ever the Government of India gets a piping time of peace before the coming of the Cocqcigrues, there ought to be an adequate life of Akbar produced by a combination of European and Indian scholarship. He wanted, like Frederick II. some centuries earlier, to do more than was possible for any one man, including the foundation of a universal religion. But he was a magnificently ambitious prince, and his peccadillos were trifling as the sins of Eastern despots go. There should also be a great publication of his architecture at FatehpurSikri, that city of palaces which stands to this day deserted, but not ruined. It is more impressive in some ways than any of the show monuments of Delhi or Agra.

The British public does not appreciate the 'New Lucian,' I fear, perhaps never will. Mr. Traill's humour is too subtle for the general. But there will always be a select number to delight in it. His work, if it is not so brilliant as Landor's, is free from Landor's prejudices and crankiness, and the violent disproportions introduced by them into Landor's Imaginary Conversations ; and sometimes it rises to a note of historic tragedy, as in the dialogue between Alexander II. and Peter the Great. If you ever meet with the comments of the Canaanitish press on the Exodus -written by Traill before the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish war in 1876-grapple those few leaves without fail. But you won't, for it has become one of the really scarce pamphlets of our time, and I doubt if it is to be had for money.

Sir Augustus's proceedings are very dark to me. There is nothing impossible in a vulgar ambitious man being captivated by a fresh pretty face; and yet I fancy somehow that his ambition is more calculating, and can hardly conceive that ruling passion being dethroned. Watch, I say again, and keep Harry out of despondency if you can. Cynthia is unformed, and may change her mind once and again before she fixes it; I cherish hopes that the final direction may be right.

Stephen Leagrave has settled to come here next week, with a quite neat and official disquisition on Secondary Education thrown