of the family that we should take
this unfortunate Isabel off their hands. Shall we? Cruelly as I
have been disappointed in the girl, I can't help liking her; she is
obliging, pleasant, ladylike in manners, very affectionate, and I
can't help thinking that with the respect and fear for you she would
feel she might be restrained, and that we could be the saving of
her, though at the same time I know that my having been so
egregiously deceived may be a sign that I am not fit to deal with
her. I leave it to your decision altogether, and will say no more
till I hear. Metelill is a charming girl, and I fancy you prefer
her, and that her mother knows it, and would send her for at least a
winter; but she gets so entirely off her balance whenever a young
man of any sort comes near, that I should not like to take charge of
her. It might be good for the worthy Jane, but as she would take a
great deal of toning down and licking into shape, and as she would
despise it all, refer everything to the Bourne Parva standard, and
pine for home and village school, I don't think she need be
considered, especially as I am sure she would not go, and could not
be spared. Pica would absorb herself in languages and antiquities,
and maintain the rights of women by insisting on having full time to
study her protoplasms, snubbing and deriding all the officers who
did not talk like Oxford dons. Probably the E. E. would be the only
people she would think fit to speak to. Avice is the one to whom I
feel the most drawn. She is thoroughly thoughtful, and her religion
is not of the uninfluential kind Mary describes. Those distresses
and perplexities which poor Isa affected were chiefly borrowed from
her genuine ones; but she has obtained the high cultivation and
intelligence that her Oxford life can give in full measure, and
without conceit or pretension, and it is her unselfish, yielding
spirit that has prevented me from knowing her sooner, though when
not suppressed she can be thoroughly agreeable, and take her part in
society with something of her mother's brilliancy. I think, too,
that she would be spared, as Oxford does not agree with her, and a
southern winter or two would be very good for her. Besides, the
others might come and see her in vacation time. Could we not take
both her and Isabel at least for the first winter?

19.--A stormy wet day, the first we have had. Poor Isa has made an
attempt at explanation and apology, but lost