ute to look at something new and strange going on
below, and the aunties quite wishing that they might commit such a
breach of decorum. We were startled out of all propriety at last by a
well-known voice sounding under the windows, and a remonstrance which
drew us all there. Looking down, we beheld Felix seated on the top of a
most extraordinary vehicle, the driver of which he had superseded, and
was trying to persuade the lumbering old horse to get on. Smart was
behind vainly endeavouring to persuade his young master to come down. A
glance at the drawing-room windows effected what Smart's entreaties had
failed to do, and the young pickle was soon at high breakfast, and had
demolished a pretty considerable quantity ere his steady elder brother
appeared.

"We have just returned from our first expedition so charmed, even our
excited imaginations came not up to the beautiful reality. The town is a
very curious one. A long street composes the principal part. Almost all
the houses are painted black, with flat roofs. The shops open to the
street. But the rock itself! My dearest sisters, you cannot imagine
anything so exquisite as the tiers upon tiers, the masses of granite or
marble rising one above another until one's eyes ached in counting them.
I think if our party are always as wild as the fresh air, the beautiful
scenery, and the new sensations caused to day, our mother will repent
her responsibility. Even the quiet Zoe was roused, and her exclamations
were as rapturous as Winny's. Felix's feats of climbing were frightful;
we were never quite sure where to look for him. If Smart had not kept
his eye on him, and threatened him with sundry punishments, I don't know
in what mischief he would not have been. He is much more afraid of Smart
than he is of his mother. Lilly's head was full of some classic stories
which she had picked up somewhere, the scene of which she was quite sure
was in Gibraltar, and each auntie in turn came in for a bit of the
story, which might have created a sensation at any other time or in any
other scene but this. So you may imagine us now, all so happy, so weary,
so enchanted, so sleepy, but wide-awake enough to be able to send the
dear party at home a bit of our pleasure, and the wish that they were
all with us to delight also in such scenes. I don't think the mother
will ever get us all away. We have quite forgotten our pretty La Luna;
indeed she is at present as little thought of as her great prot