l Bob has gone?"

"No, open it at once, Carrie. If he does say, 'send Bob on by the
first vessel,' there is not likely to be one before he goes in the
Antelope. Besides, that is all the more reason why he should go for
a cruise, before he starts back for that grimy old place in Philpot
Lane. We may as well see what the old gentleman says."

"I won't open mine till you have read yours, Carrie," Bob said. "I
mean to go the cruise, anyhow; but if he says I must go after that,
I will go. If he had been the old bear I used to think him, I would
not mind it a snap; but he has been so kind that I shall certainly
do what he wants."

Bob sat, with his hands deep in his pockets, watching his sister's
face with the deepest anxiety as she glanced through the letter;
Gerald standing by, and looking over her shoulder.

Illustration: 'The old gentleman is a brick,' exclaimed Gerald.

"The old gentleman is a brick!" Gerald, who was the first to arrive
at the end, exclaimed. "I wish I had had such a sensible old
relative, myself, but--barring an aunt who kept three parrots and a
cat, and who put more store on the smallest of them than she did on
me--never a relative did I have, in the world."

"Oh, tell me that afterwards!" Bob broke in.

"Do tell me what uncle says, Carrie."

His sister turned to the beginning again and read aloud:

"My dear niece--"

"Where does he write from?" Bob interrupted. "Is it from Philpot
Lane, or from somewhere else?"

"He writes from Matlock, Derbyshire."

"That is all right," Bob said. "I thought, by what Gerald said, he
could not have written from Philpot Lane."

"My dear niece," Carrie began again, "I duly received your letter,
saying that Bob had arrived out safely; and also his more lengthy
epistle, giving an account of the incidents of the voyage. I should
be glad if you would impress upon him the necessity of being more
particular in his punctuation, as also in the crossing of his t's
and the dotting of his i's. I have also received your letter
bearing date June 1st; and note, with great satisfaction, your
statement that he has been most assiduous in his studies, and that
he is already able to converse with some fluency in Spanish.

"Since that time the state of affairs between the two countries has
much occupied my attention--both from its commercial aspect, which
is serious, and in connection with Bob. As the issue of a
declaration of war is hourly expected, as I write, the period