there is a village church called Hollyford, held, I believe, by a former fellow-curate of Horace Druce. Perhaps they will exchange duties, if Horace can be persuaded to take a longer holiday than merely for the three weeks he has provided for at Bourne Parva. They cannot come till Monday week, but our Oxford professor and his party come on Thursday, and Edith will bring her girls the next day. Her husband, our Q.C., cannot come till his circuit is over, but of course you know more about his movements than I do. I wonder you have never said anything about those girls of his, but I suppose you class them as unattainable. I have said nothing to my mother or Emily of our plans, as I wish to be perfectly unbiased, and as I have seen none of the nieces for five years, and am prepared to delight in them all, I may be reckoned as a blank sheet as to their merits.—Your affectionate sister,

CHARLOTTE FULFORD.

July 4.—By noon to-day arrived Martyn, {127} with Mary his wife, Margaret and Avice their daughters, Uchtred their second son, and poor Harry Fulford’s orphan, Isabel, who has had a home with them ever since she left school. Though she is only a cousin once removed, she seems to fall into the category of eligible nieces, and indeed she seems the obvious companion for us, as she has no home, and seems to me rather set aside among the others. I hope there is no jealousy, for she is much better looking than her cousins, with gentle, liquid eyes, a pretty complexion, and a wistful expression. Moreover, she is dressed in a quiet ladylike way, whereas grandmamma looked out just now in the twilight and said, “My dear Martyn, have you brought three boys down?” It was a showery, chilly evening, and they were all out admiring the waves. Ulsters and sailor hats were appropriate enough then, but the genders were not easy to distinguish, especially as the elder girl wears her hair short—no improvement to a keen face which needs softening. She is much too like a callow undergraduate altogether, and her sister follows suit, though perhaps with more refinement of feature—indeed she looks delicate, and was soon called in. They are in slight mourning, and appear in gray serges. They left a strap of books on the sofa, of somewhat alarming light literature for the seaside. Bacon’s Essays and Elements of Logic were the first Emily beheld, and while she stood regarding them with mingled horror and respect, in ran Avice to fetch them, as the two sisters are reading up for the Oxford exam—‘ination’ she added when she saw her two feeble-minded aunts looking for the rest of the word. However, she says it is only Pica who is going up for it this time. She herself was not considered 

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