"I would rather know nothing. It is quite impossible," said Dessie. "Ah!" responded Mr. Fitzroy. He laid a hand on her arm, and marched her back into the schoolroom. The girls looked scared, and Miss Bruce was pale and nervous. "Miss Bruce, I have come to say that you will not have the trouble of a third pupil, after all. Dessie declines to study under you." Miss Bruce sat down, for she was trembling too much to stand. "Is this the bone of contention ?" asked Mr. Fitzroy, laying hands on the sheet of paper. "H'm! Ha! Well, it is wise to begin at the beginning: lines and circles, to be followed, I suppose, by angles. I should have said squares came before circles, in point of simplicity. But you will not be troubled any more, Miss Bruce. Dessie does not approve of our style of education. I must write to her father immediately, and tell him to expect her back next week." "O Uncle Sidney!" cried the dismayed Dessie. "You do not imagine that I am going to keep you here for six months in a state of idleness! Your father sent you to us for education. But perhaps you expect me to engage an instructress especially for yourself? "I don't want to go home yet," said Dessie, with unwonted meekness. "It must be home or Miss Bruce,-if Miss Bruce is willing to undertake you again, now that she is released from the obligation." "I can only do so, on condition that Dessie submits to rules and does as she is told," said Miss Bruce. "You hear, Dessie?" Mr. Fitzroy spoke significantly. Dessie looked each in the face dubiously, thought, sighed, sat down at the table, and began to make vigorous use of her indiarubber. “Does that mean penitence?" asked Mr. Fitzroy. "It means everything," said Dessie, with an air of profound submission. "I'll do just exactly everything I'm told-and more." "More' is not obedience," said Mr. Fitzroy. Dessie, you are the most complete infant I ever at the age of fifteen." saw, But this time Dessie controlled her feelings, whatever they might have been, and showed no signs of an inclination to rush from the room. "MY DEAR ELLA,-I don't know what in the world you will have thought of me, leaving you all this time without a single letter. I meant to write to you ages ago, but, somehow,, time slips away, one doesn't know where, in a foreign country. Everything is so new and amusing at first that one does not feel capable of descending to the commonplace drudgery of letters. However, I really am going to write to-day, and at the outset I promise a long letter to make up for past dilatoriness. After all, you will appreciate it better now, than you could have done awhile back, when you were still anxious about Baby. Dear little man! I wonder if he remembers 'Auntie Dessie' still, or whether he will have quite forgotten me by the time I come back. There is nobody in all England whom I want more to see than Baby Hugh. That's a compliment to his mother as well, I suppose. You all speak about his seeming stronger.' Does that mean that he |