ight bring a niece who had not been able to come
yesterday, and as the young people had, as usual, become enamoured
of Metelill, they begged for her likewise. Avice looks very well in
the dress she made up for Pica, and being sisters and in mourning,
the identity will only be natural. She is very much pleased and
very grateful, and declares that she shall see everything she cares
about much more pleasantly than in the larger party, and perhaps
'really hear the hero talk.' And Uncle Horace says, "True, you
Bird, you are not like some young folk, who had rather hear
themselves talk than Socrates and S. Ambrose both at once." "Oh!"
said saucy Pica, "now we know what Uncle Horace thinks of his own
conversations with father!" By the bye, Martyn and Mary come home
to-morrow, and I am very glad of it, for those evening diversions on
the beach go on in full force, and though there is nothing tangible,
except Charley's smoke, to object to, and it is the present way of
young people, there is something unsatisfactory in it. Edith does
not seem to mind what her daughters do. Margaret has no occasion to
be uneasy about Jane, who always stays with the little ones while
the maids are at supper, and generally takes with her the devoted
Avice, who has some delicacy of throat forbidding these evening
excursions. Meg gets more boisterous and noisy every day, Uchtred
being her chief companion; but as she is merely a tomboy, I believe
her parents think it inexpedient to give her hints that might only
put fancies in her head. So they have only prohibited learning to
smoke, staying out later than nine o'clock, and shrieking louder
than a steam whistle!

17.--Yesterday was a great success. Avice was silent at first, but
Metelill drew her out, and she had become quite at her ease before
we arrived. You would have been enchanted to see how much was made
of our dear mother. Lord Hollybridge came out himself to give her
his arm up the stone steps and across the slippery hall. The good
old chief talked to her by the hour about you, and Avice's eyes
shone all the time. After luncheon our kind hostess arranged that
dear mother should have half an hour's perfect rest, in a charming
little room fitted like a tent, and then had a low chair with two
little fairy ponies in it to drive her about the gardens, while I
walked with the two gentlemen and saw things much better than in the
former hurly-burly, though that was a beautiful spectacle