Yes;--I do think Ayala Dormer is a very pretty girl, and I
do think, also, that she is clever. I quite agree that she
is ladylike. But I do not therefore think that she is just
such a girl as such a man as Colonel Jonathan Stubbs ought
to marry. She is one of those human beings who seem to
have been removed out of this world and brought up in
another. Though she knows ever so much that nobody else
knows, she is ignorant of ever so much that everybody
ought to know. Wandering through a grove, or seated by a
brook, or shivering with you on the top of a mountain, she
would be charming. I doubt whether she would be equally
good at the top of your table, or looking after your
children, or keeping the week's accounts. She would tease
you with poetry, and not even pretend to be instructed
when you told her how an army ought to be moved. I say
nothing as to the fact that she hasn't got a penny, though
you are just in that position which makes it necessary
for a man to get some money with his wife. I therefore am
altogether indisposed to any matrimonial outlook in that
direction.--Your affectionate aunt,

BEATRICE BALDONI.

COLONEL STUBBS TO HIS COUSIN NINA.

DEAR NINA,

Lady Albury is wrong; I ought not to be at Stalham. What
should I do at Stalham at this time of year, who never
shoot partridges, and what would be the use of attempting
lawn tennis when I know I should be cut out by Mr.
Ponsonby? If that day in November is to come off then I'll
come and coach you across the country. You tell Sir Harry
that I say so, and that I will bring three horses for one
week. I think it very hard about poor Ayala Dormer, but
what can any knight do in such a case? When a young lady
is handed over to the custody of an uncle or an aunt,
she becomes that uncle's and aunt's individual property.
Mrs. Dosett may be the most noxious dragon that ever was
created for the mortification and general misery of an
imprisoned damsel, but still she is omnipotent. The only
knight who can be of any service is one who will go with a
ring in his hand, and absolutely carry the prisoner away
by force of the marriage service. Your unfortunate cousin
is so exclusively devoted to the duty of fighting his
country's battles that he has not even time to think of a
step so momentous as that.

Poor Ayala! Do not be stupid enou