e same sort of things at home. Isn't
that the bone of it? Send me--don't forget it--send me some
news of Rocksley. I want to hear how they take all that I
have been doing of late for their happiness. I have half of
a letter written to Soph--a sort of mild condolence, blended
with what the serious people call profitable reflections and
suggestive hints that her old affection will find its way
back to me one of these days, and that when the event
occurs, her best course will be to declare it. I have
reminded her, too, that I laid up a little love in her heart
when we parted, just as shrewd people leave a small balance
at their bankers' as a title to reopen their account at a
future day.

"Give Guy's people a hint that it's only wasting postage-
stamps to torment me with bills. I never break the envelope
of a dun's letter, and I know them as instinctively as a
detective does a swell-mobsman. What an imaginative race
these duns must be. I know of no fellow, for the high
flights of fancy, to equal one's tailor or bootmaker. As to
the search for the elixir vitae, it's a dull realism after
the attempts I have witnessed for years to get money out of
myself.

"But I must close this; here is Milly, whose taper fingers
have been making cigarettes for me all the morning, come to
propose a sail on the lake!--fact Algy!--and the wolf is
going out with the lambs, just as prettily and as decorously
as though his mother had been a ewe and cast 'sheep's eyes'
at his father. Address me, Orta, simply, for I don't wish it
to be thought here that my stay is more than a day by day
matter. I have all my letters directed to the post-office.

"Yours, very cordially,

"Harry Calvert."

The pleasant project thus passingly alluded to was not destined to
fulfilment; for as Calvert with the two sisters were on their way to
the lake, they were overtaken by Miss Grainger, who insisted on
carrying away Calvert, to give her his advice upon a letter she had just
received. Obeying with the best grace he could, and which really did not
err on the score of extravagance, he accompanied the old lady back to
the house, somewhat relieved, indeed, in mind, to learn that the letter
she was about to show him in no way related to him nor his affairs.

"I have my scruples, Mr. Calvert, about asking your