I believe masters in Germany only charge about 6d. an
hour, so it won't ruin you. Make her take lots of exercise, and let
her ride. She has outgrown her old habit, but German tailors are so
cheap that a new one will cost next to nothing, and any horse that
shakes her up well will do. I shall be quite happy about her diet,
because I know you don't have anything to eat. I was at the
Ennistons' last night. They seemed very sorry for me being so
nearly related to somebody cracked; but after all, as I tell
people, I'm not responsible for my husband's relations.--Your
affectionate, SUSIE ESTCOURT.

"I have never seen Hilton so upset as she was after that German
trip. She cried if anyone looked at her. Poor thing, no wonder. The
doctor says she is all nerves."

The evening meal was in progress at Kleinwalde when this letter came.
The dining-room was finished, and it was the first meal served there
since its transformation. No one who had seen it on that dark day of
Anna's arrival would have recognised it, so cheerful did it look with
its whitewashed walls. There were no dark corners now where china
shepherds smiled in vain; the western light filled it, and to a person
lately come from Susie's Hill Street house, it was a refreshment to sit
in any place so simple and so clean. Reforms, too, had been made in the
food, and the bread was no longer disfigured by caraway seeds. A great
bowl of blue hepaticas, fresh from the forest, stood on the table; and
the hepaticas were the exact colour of Anna's eyes. When Letty saw her
mother's handwriting she turned cold. It was the warrant that was to
banish her from Eden, casting her back into the outer darkness of the
Popular Concerts and the literature lectures. She was in the act of
raising a spoonful of pudding to her already opened mouth, when she
caught sight of the well-known writing. She hesitated, her hand shook,
and finally she laid her spoon down again and pushed her plate back. At
the great crises of life who can go on eating pudding? What then was her
relief and joy to see her aunt get up, come round to where she was
sitting braced to hear the worst, put her arms round her neck, and to
feel herself being kissed. "You are going to stay with me after all!"
cried Anna delightedly. "Dear little Letty--I should have missed you
horribly. Aren't you glad? Your mother says I'm to keep you for ever so
long."

"Oh, I say--how