e just at the end of August. I will be
there, like a book, on the 20th. Of course I understand
all that you say. Fathers can't be expected to yield all
at once, especially when suitors haven't got very much of
their own. I shouldn't have dared to ask hadn't I known
myself to be a most moderate man. Of course I shall ask
again. If you will help me, no doubt I shall succeed. I
really do think that I am the man to make Gertrude happy.

Yours, dear Lady Tringle, ever so much,

F. HOUSTON.

Letter No. 2.

MY OWN ONE,

Your governor is a brick. Of course, Glenbogie will be
better than the Tyrol, as you are to be there. Not but
what the Tyrol is a very jolly place, and we'll go and see
it together some day. Ask Tom to let me know whether one
can wear heavy boots in the Glenbogie mountains. They are
much the best for the heather; but I have shot generally
in Yorkshire, and there they are too hot. What number does
he shoot with generally? I fancy the birds are wilder with
you than with us.

As for riding, I don't dare to sit upon a horse this
weather. Nobody but a woman can stand it. Indeed, now I
think of it, I sold my horse last week to pay the fellow
I buy paints from. I've got the saddle and bridle, and if
I stick them up upon a rail, under the trees, it would be
better than any horse while the thermometer is near 80.
All the ladies could come round and talk to one so nicely.

I hate lunch, because it makes me red in the face, and
nobody will give me my breakfast before eleven at the
earliest. But I'll come in about three as often as you
like to have me. I think I perhaps shall run over to the
Tyrol after Glenbogie. A man must go somewhere when he has
been turned out in that fashion. There are so many babies
at Buncombe Hall!

--Buncombe Hall is the family seat of the Houstons,--

and I don't like to see my own fate typified before the
time.

Can I do anything for you except riding or eating
lunch,--which are simply feminine exercises? Always your
own,

FRANK.

Letter No. 3.

DEAR COUSIN IM,

How pleasant it is that a little strain of thin blood
should make the use of that pretty name allowable! What
a stupid world it is when the people who like each other
best cannot get together because of proprieties, and
marriages, and such balderdash as we call love