s invitation we have declined, principally because the
Colquhouns will be with them, and they would surely be burdened by the
addition of three ladies and a maid to their family; partly because we
shall be freer in our own house, which will be as near the La Touche
mansion as possible, you may be sure, if Francesca and I have anything
to do with choosing it.

The La Touche name, then, is often on our lips, but Salemina offers no
intimation that it is indelibly imprinted on her heart of hearts. It
is a good name to be written anywhere, and we fancied there was the
slightest possible hint of pride and possession in Salemina's voice when
she read to us to-night, from her third volume of Lecky's History of
Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, a paragraph concerning one David La
Touche, from whom Dr. Gerald is descended:--

'In the last of the Irish Parliaments no less than five members of the
name sat together in the House of Commons, and his family may claim what
is in truth the highest honour of which an Irish family can boast,--that
during many successive governments, and in a period of most lavish
corruption, it possessed great parliamentary influence, and yet passed
through political life untitled and unstained.'

There is just the faintest gleam of hope, by the way, that Himself may
join us at the very end of June, and he is sure to be helpful on this
sentimental journey; he aided Ronald and Francesca more than once
in their tempestuous love-affair, and if his wits are not dulled by
marriage, as so often happens, he will be invaluable. It will not be
long then, probably, before I assume my natural, my secondary position
in the landscape of events. The junior partners are now, so to speak, on
their legs, although it is idle to suppose that such brittle appendages
will support them for any length of time. As soon as we return in the
autumn I should like to advertise (if Himself will permit me) for a
perfectly sound and kind junior partner,--one who has been well broken
to harness, and who will neither shy nor balk, no matter what the
provocation; the next step being to urge Himself to relinquish
altogether the bondage of business care. There is no need of his
continuing in it, since other people's business will always give him
ample scope for his energies. He has, since his return to America,
dispensed justice and mercy, chiefly mercy, to one embezzler, one honest
fellow tempted beyond his strength, one widow, one unfor