ers who would say the same thing."

"If I had not had her dear letters to hearten me and cheer me up, I
think that many a time I should have broken down utterly under the
dreadful monotony of my life at the Pension Clissot. I had no holidays,
in the common meaning of the word; no dear friends to go and see; none
even to come once in a way to see me, were it only for one happy hour. I
had no home recollections to which I could look back fondly in memory,
and the future was all a blank--a mystery. But the letters of Sister
Agnes spoke to me like the voice of a dear friend. They purified me,
they lifted me out of my common work-a-day troubles and all the petty
meannesses of school-girl existence, and set before me the example of a
good and noble life as the one thing worth striving for in this weary
world."

"Tut, tut, my dear child!" said the Major, "you are far too young to
call the world a weary world. Please heaven, it shall not be quite such
a dreary place for you in time to come. We will begin the change this
very evening. We shall just be in time to get a bit of dinner, and then,
heigh! for the play."

"The play, dear Major Strickland!" said Janet, with a sudden flush and
an eager light in her eyes; "but would Sister Agnes approve of my going
to such a place?"

"I scarcely think, poverina, that Sister Agnes would disapprove of any
place to which I might choose to take you."

"Forgive me!" cried Janet; "I did not intend you to construe my words in
that way."

"I have never construed anything since I was at school fifty years ago,"
answered the Major, laughingly. "Can you tell me now from your heart,
little one, that you would not like to go to the play?"

"I should like very, very much to go, and after what has been said I
will never forgive you if you do not take me."

"The penalty would be too severe. It is agreed that we shall go."

"To me it seems only seven days instead of seven years since I was last
driven through London streets," resumed Janet, as they were crawling up
Fleet Street. "The same shops, the same houses, and even, as it seems to
me, the same people crowding the pathways; and, to complete the
illusion, the same kind travelling companion now as then."

"To me the illusion seems by no means so complete. To London Bridge,
seven years ago, I took a simple child of twelve: to-day I bring back a
young lady of nineteen--a woman, in point of fact--who, I have no doubt,
understands more of flirt