ier with her father than with anyone else. He had not, perhaps,
any natural taste for baby-worship, but he was always ready to
sacrifice himself, and therefore made an excellent third in a trio
with his daughter and Mary Bold in singing the praises of the
wonderful child.

They were standing together over their music in the evening, the baby
having again been put to bed upon the sofa, when the servant brought
in a very small note in a beautiful pink envelope. It quite filled
the room with perfume as it lay upon the small salver. Mary Bold and
Mrs. Bold were both at the piano, and Mr. Harding was sitting close
to them, with the violoncello between his legs, so that the elegancy
of the epistle was visible to them all.

"Please ma'am, Dr. Stanhope's coachman says he is to wait for an
answer," said the servant.

Eleanor got very red in the face as she took the note in her hand.
She had never seen the writing before. Charlotte's epistles, to
which she was well accustomed, were of a very different style and
kind. She generally wrote on large note-paper; she twisted up her
letters into the shape and sometimes into the size of cocked hats;
she addressed them in a sprawling, manly hand, and not unusually added
a blot or a smudge, as though such were her own peculiar sign-manual.
The address of this note was written in a beautiful female hand, and
the gummed wafer bore on it an impress of a gilt coronet. Though
Eleanor had never seen such a one before, she guessed that it came
from the signora. Such epistles were very numerously sent out from
any house in which the signora might happen to be dwelling, but they
were rarely addressed to ladies. When the coachman was told by the
lady's maid to take the letter to Mrs. Bold, he openly expressed his
opinion that there was some mistake about it. Whereupon the lady's
maid boxed the coachman's ears. Had Mr. Slope seen in how meek a
spirit the coachman took the rebuke, he might have learnt a useful
lesson, both in philosophy and religion.

The note was as follows. It may be taken as a faithful promise that
no further letter whatever shall be transcribed at length in these
pages.

MY DEAR MRS. BOLD,

May I ask you, as a great favour, to call on me to-morrow.
You can say what hour will best suit you, but quite early,
if you can. I need hardly say that if I could call upon
you, I should not take this liberty with you.

I partly know what occurred the other day, a