cess
of turning back some ten or twelve years in her life. It was a strange
letter to come to her--a large letter, which had been charged double
postage; a letter with the elements of mortification in it, as well as
other elements, both to sender and receiver. It was written in a big,
scampering hand.

"Dear Mad," it began, "it is so queer to be addressing you again. I
remember when I used to say 'Mad' to a white-faced, dark-eyed girl.
Was she pretty, I wonder? Some people said so, but I don't know,
only I have never seen a face quite equal to hers since--never. Mad
and I were great friends when I used to visit her elder brother;
great friends, indeed, in a bantering, biting way. But it was Mad
who bantered and bit; certainly I did not banter and bite again,
rarely even so much as gave a gentle pinch, for I would not have
hurt Mad for the world, and Mad did not hurt me. At least she never
meant it seriously, and she was always so piteously penitent when
she thought she had wounded my feelings. Oh, dear, quizzing Mad! she
had such a soft heart in its bristling shell, and I hurt it. I hurt
Mad--yes, I know; I know to my sorrow and shame.

"Mad, do you remember how you went every day to meet a timid little
brother coming from school along a lonely moorland road, where there
were broomy braes in June and heathery braes in September? What a
convenient custom it was for me, since the little brother, unlike
little monsters of the same kind, had neither eyes nor ears but for
his own avocations, and trotted on obediently in front of us. The
sight of my own little Bill's satchel gives me a turn, and makes me
feel spoony to this day. Do you remember your great dog, Mad? (what
a child you were for pets!)--and who it was used to go to the kennel
to feed it with you? If that dog had been a true Bevis, it would
have torn that hulking fellow where he stood, yet he meant no harm;
nay, he had a strong persuasion that he was doing something
meritorious (how he hit it I can't tell) in not committing himself
and binding you when he had no more than a clerk's paltry income.
But I have heard that trees, stripped of leaves in flowery May,
revenge themselves by bursting out green, if the frosts will let
them, in foggy November. So the prudence of twenty-five may be the
folly of thirty-five. It was rank mean-spiritedness i