r is radiant, and makes so much of the
little bride-elect that she declares her head is quite turned. The
house is quite topsy-turvy with the excitement of this first wedding
in the family. Isabel is very young to be married, and I tell mother
six weeks is far too short for an engagement; but it seems Ellis will
not listen to reason, and he has talked mother over. Perhaps I am
rather fastidious, but, if I were Isabel, I should hate to receive my
trousseau from my lover; and yet Ellis wants his mother to get
everything for his _fiancee_. I believe there is to be a sort of
compromise, and Mrs. Burton is to select heaps of pretty
things,--dresses and mantles and Paris bonnets. They are rolling in
riches. Ellis has taken a large house in Sloane Square, and his father
has bought him a landau and a splendid pair of horses;
everything--furniture, plate and ornaments--is to be as massive and
expensive as possible. If I were Isabel I should feel smothered by all
these grand things but the little lady takes it all quite coolly.

"When I get a moment to myself I sit down and say, 'In six weeks I
shall see Archie!' Oh, my darling! this is almost too good news to be
true! Only six weeks, and then I shall really see you! Now do you
know, I am longing for a good clearing-up talk? for your letters
lately have not satisfied me at all. Perhaps I am growing fanciful,
but I cannot help feeling as though something has come between us. The
current of sympathy seems turned aside, somehow. No, do not laugh, or
put me off with a jest, for I am really in earnest; and but for fear
of your scolding me I should own to being just a little unhappy.
Forgive me, Archie, if I vex you; but there is something, I am
thoroughly convinced of that. You have some new interest or worry that
you are keeping from me. Is this quite in accordance with our old
compact, dear? Who are these Challoners Mattie mentions in her
letters? She told me a strange rigmarole about them the other
day,--that they were young ladies who had turned dressmakers. What an
eccentric idea! They must be very odd young ladies, I should think, to
emancipate themselves so completely from all conventionalities. I wish
they had not established themselves at Hadleigh and so near the
vicarage. Mattie says you are so kind to them. Oh, Archie! dear
brother! do be careful! I do not half like the idea of these girls;
they sound rash and designing, and you are so chivalrous in your
notions. Why not l