w transmitted through the quill pen to the
neat, clear characters fashioned by her hand. The reading of it, too,
will assist the reader to a better understanding of the girl and the
conditions surrounding her, and Lisbeth was a girl worth knowing,
though she may yet need excuses, and those will be the more easily
made after reading.

"DEAR AUNT HARRIET:--I know you keep promises and so I address you
as 'aunt.' I'm sure you remember one day when I came to you in
tears. I didn't often come that way, did I? I was so lonely, I'll
never forget how lonely, just because it suddenly occurred to me
that most little girls had mothers and aunts, and I had never seen
one that belonged to me. You took me in your arms and said you
would be my aunt, that you had been thinking how nice it would be
to have a little girl for a niece, and I went home comforted and
actually believing you had wanted me for a niece all the time.

"Well, I've got a real aunt now, Aunt Mogridge, and sometimes I
think neither of us is real glad it is so. I'm a wicked girl for
writing that, and would scratch it out only I somehow want you to
know how I feel. She is just as kind as any aunt could be, but,
well, she doesn't care for the things I do, and--vice versa, as
the books say. Now, while I'm sighing for a glimpse of the Old
Dominion, and papa, and you and--and all of them, Aunt Mogridge
is sighing because she can't have a new dress for Lady D----'s
to-morrow night, and worrying lest I say something I ought not to,
because there is to be a real live duke there. I have met dukes
before, and found them very uninteresting, although I suppose
there are various kinds.

"What wouldn't I give, this dismal afternoon, to jump on the back
of Moleskin and ride like the wind and hear solemn old Jeremiah
clattering behind, his black face turned white with fear lest I
fall off! Instead I've been listening to old Lady Brendon retail
the latest gossip. She's a wheezy old lady, so fat her chairmen's
faces always shine with perspiration, and all she cares about is
the latest gossip: 'Lord So-and-So has wagered his last farthing
at White's or the Chocolate House,' until I want to say, like
black Susan, 'Jolly fuss!' You should have heard Aunt Mogridge
tell Lady Brendon about what a rich man papa is. I used to think,
to hear him talk, that if the crops failed he'd never be able to
pay his debts.

"I saw t