at all, which explains the most astounding fact
of positively naught to pay. Janetta, every day I congratulate myself
upon such a wondrous daughter. But I never could have hoped that even
you would bring me a letter gratis."

"But the worst of it is that I deserve no credit. If I had cheated the
postman, there would have been something to be proud of. But this letter
came in the most ignominious way--poked under the gate, papa! It is
sealed with a foreign coin! Oh, dear, dear, I am all in a tingle to know
all about it. I saw it by the moonlight, and it must belong to me."

"My dear, it says, 'Private, and to his own hands.' Therefore you had
better go, and think no more about it. I confide to you many of my
business matters: or at any rate you get them out of me: but this being
private, you must think no more about it."

"Darling papa, what a flagrant shame! The man must have done it with
no other object than to rob me of every wink of sleep. If I swallow the
outrage and retire, will you promise to tell me every word to-morrow?
You preached a most exquisite sermon last Sunday about the meanness and
futility of small concealments."

"Be off!" cried the rector; "you are worse than Mr. Mordacks, who lays
down the law about frankness perpetually, but never lets me guess what
his own purpose is."

"Oh, now I see where the infection comes from! Papa, I am off, for fear
of catching it myself. Don't tell me, whatever you do. I never can sleep
upon dark mysteries."

"Poor dear, you shall not have your rest disturbed," Dr. Upround said,
sweetly, as he closed the door behind her; "you are much too good a
girl for other people's plagues to visit you." Then, as he saddled his
pleasant old nose with the tranquil span of spectacles, the smile on his
lips and the sigh of his breast arrived at a quiet little compromise. He
was proud of his daughter, her quickness and power to get the upper
turn of words with him; but he grieved at her not having any deep
impressions, even after his very best sermons. But her mother always
told him not to be in any hurry, for even she herself had felt no very
profound impressions until she married a clergyman; and that argument
always made him smile (as invisibly as possible), because he had not
detected yet their existence in his better half. Such questions are
most delicate, and a husband can only set mute example. A father, on
the other hand, is bound to use his pastoral crook upon his children