em very long, and are the
production of a former acquaintance of the reader's, who has somewhat
altered in height and personal appearance during the course of the last
fourteen years. Here is the first of the notes which Valentine is now
reading:--

"Dear Blyth,--My father says Theaters are the Devil's Houses, and I
must be home by eleven o'clock. I'm sure I never did anything wrong at a
Theater, which I might not have done just the same anywhere else; unless
laughing over a good play is one of the _national sins_ he's always
talking about. I can't stand it much longer, even for my mother's sake!
You are my only friend. I shall come and see you to-morrow, so mind and
be at home. How I wish I was an artist! Yours ever, Z. THORPE, JUN."

Shaking his head and smiling at the same time, Mr. Blyth finishes this
letter--drops a perfect puddle of dirty paint and turpentine in the
middle, over the words "national sins," throws the paper into the
fire--and goes on to note number two:

"Dear Blyth,--I couldn't come yesterday, because of another quarrel at
home, and my mother crying about it, of course. My father smelt tobacco
smoke at morning prayers. It was my coat, which I forgot to air at the
fire the night before; and he found it out, and said he wouldn't have
me smoke, because it led to dissipation--but I told him (which is true)
that lots of parsons smoked. I wish you visited at our house, and could
come and say a word on my side. Dear Blyth, I am perfectly wretched;
for I have had all my cigars taken from me; and I am, yours truly, Z.
THORPE, JUN."

A third note is required before the palette can be scraped clean.
Mr. Blyth reads the contents rather gravely on this occasion; rapidly
plastering his last morsels of waste paint upon the paper as he goes on,
until at length it looks as if it had been well peppered with all the
colors of the rainbow.

Zack's third letter of complaint certainly promised serious domestic
tribulation for the ruling power at Baregrove Square:--

"Dear Blyth,--I have given in--at least for the present. I told my
father about my wanting to be an artist, and about your saying that I
had a good notion of drawing, and an eye for a likeness; but I might
just as well have talked to one of your easels. He means to make a man
of business of me. And here I have been, for the last three weeks, at
a Tea Broker's office in the city, in consequence. They all say it's
a good opening for me, and ta