beautify a plain face; and in spite of my Grecian treasure I still remain obscure. If not ornamental, however, I manage to be useful; I am an excellent foil to my sister Dora. She is beyond dispute our bright particular star, and revels in that knowledge. To be admired is sun and air and life to Dora, who resembles nothing in the world so much as an exquisite little Dresden figure, so delicate, so pink and white, so yellow-haired, and always so bewitchingly attired. She never gets into a passion, is never unduly excited. She is too pretty and too fragile for the idea, else I might be tempted to say that on rare occasions she sulks. Still, she is notably good-tempered, and has a positive talent for evading all unpleasant topics that may affect her own peace of mind.

Papa is a person to be feared; mother is not; consequently, we all love mother best. In appearance the head of our family is tall, lean, and unspeakably severe. With him a spade is always a spade, and his _nay_ is indeed nay. According to a tradition among us, that has grown with our growth, in his nose--which is singularly large and obtrusive--lies all the harshness that characterizes his every action. Indeed, many a time and oft have Billy and I speculated as to whether, were he suddenly shorn of his proboscis, he would also find himself deprived of his strength of mind. He is calm, and decidedly well-bred, both in manner and expression--two charms we do not appreciate, as, on such frequent occasions as when disgrace falls upon one or all of the household, the calmness and breeding become so terrible that, without so much as a frown, he can wither us beyond recognition.

I am his particular _bete noire_; my hoydenish ways jar every hour of the day upon his sensitive nerves. He never tires of contrasting me unfavorably with his gentle elegant Dora. He detests gushing people, and I, unhappily for myself, am naturally very affectionate. I feel not only a desire to love, but at times an unconquerable longing to openly declare my love; and as Roland is generally with his regiment, and Dora is a sort of person who would die if violently embraced, I am perforce obliged to expend all my superfluous affection upon our darling mother and Billy.

Strict economy prevails among us; more through necessity, indeed, than from any unholy desire to save. Our annual income of eight hundred pounds goes but a short way under any circumstances, and the hundred pounds a year out of this we allow Roland (who is always in a state of insolvency) leaves us "poor indeed." A new dress is, therefore, a rarity--not perhaps so strange a thing to Dora as it is to me--and any 

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