f them asleep
under a stone, just where our house is built, and sometimes they come
into the kitchen. I do not know the names of the other things I send;
and I could not ask Ave, for she said you would not want to be bothered
with a little girl's letter, and I was not to ask for an answer. Rosa
Willis says no young lady of my age would ask her sister's permission,
and not even her mother's, unless her mamma was very intellectual and
highly educated, and always saw the justice of her arguments; but Minna
and I do not mean to be like that. I would tell Ave if you did write
to me, but she need not read it unless she liked.

'I am, your affectionate little friend,
'ELLA.'

'Well!' said Tom, holding out his hand for more when she had restored
this epistle. 'You have heard all there was in it, except--'

'Except what I want to see.'

And Ethel, as she had more or less intended all along, let him have
Averil's letter, since the exception was merely a few tender words of
congratulation to Mary. The worst had been done already by her father;
and it may here be mentioned that though nothing was said in answer to
her explanation of the opening of the letter, the head-master never
recovered the fact, and always attributed it to his dear sister Ethel.

'For the future,' said Tom, as he gave back the thin sheets, 'they will
all be for the Cheviots' private delectation.'

'I shall begin on my own score,' said Ethel. 'You know if you answer
this letter, you must not mention that visit of yours, or you will be
prohibited, and one would not wish to excite a domestic secession.'

'It would serve the unnatural scoundrel right,' said Tom. 'Well, I
must go and put up my things. You'll keep me up to what goes on at
home, and if there's anything out there to tell Leonard--'

'Wait a moment, Tom!'--and she told him what the Doctor had said about
his plans.

'Highly educated and intellectual,' was all the answer that Tom
vouchsafed; and whether he were touched or not she could not gather.

Yet her spirit felt less weary and burdened, and more full of hope than
it had been for a long time past. Averil's letter showed the
exhilaration of the change, and of increasing confidence and comfort in
her friend Cora Muller. Cora's Confirmation had brought the girls into
contact with the New York clergy, and had procured them an introduction
to the clerg