, now I can't. As to when I'm coming
home, you may well ask. I have wished for fifteen years to begin to
earn my own living; last April I began to try--it is too soon to say
yet with what success. I am woefully ignorant, terribly wanting in
tact, and obstinately lazy, and almost too old to mend. Luckily
there is no other dance for me, so I must work. Ellen takes to it
kindly, it gratifies a deep ardent _wish_ of hers as of mine, and she
is habitually industrious. For _her_, ten years younger, our shop
will be a blessing. She may possibly secure an independence, and
skill to keep it and use it, before the prime of life is past. As to
my writings, you may as well ask the Fates about that too. I can
give you no information. I write a page now and then. I never
forget or get strange to what I have written. When I read it over it
looks very interesting.

'MARY TAYLOR.'

The Ellen Taylor referred to so frequently was, as I have said, a cousin
of Mary's. Her early death in New Zealand gives the single letter I have
of hers a more pathetic interest.

TO MISS CHARLOTTE BRONTE

'WELLINGTON, N. Z.

'MY DEAR MISS BRONTE,--I shall tell you everything I can think of,
since you said in one of your letters to Pag that you wished me to
write to you. I have been here a year. It seems a much shorter
time, and yet I have thought more and done more than I ever did in my
life before. When we arrived, Henry and I were in such a hurry to
leave the ship that we didn't wait to be fetched, but got into the
first boat that came alongside. When we landed we inquired where
Waring lived, but hadn't walked far before we met him. I had never
seen him before, but he guessed we were the cousins he expected, so
caught us and took us along with him. Mary soon joined us, and we
went home together. At first I thought Mary was not the least
altered, but when I had seen her for about a week I thought she
looked rather older. The first night Mary and I sat up till 2 A.M.
talking. Mary and I settled we would do something together, and we
talked for a fortnight before we decided whether we would have a
school or shop; it ended in favour of the shop. Waring thought we
had better