greeted upon her arrival by another letter from the mysterious Hudson,
who, not at all discomfited by the cool reception, of his proposal,
addressed her as his future wife, and announced that he had come on
from Baltimore to marry her, that he was now in New York, and would
wait there to hear from her.

"The man is certainly crazy!" exclaimed Marguerite.

"Indeed he is!" said mamma, reading his rambling sentences very slowly:
"I should judge him to be perfectly insane, and I only hope he will not
come out here to pay his _fiancée_ a visit."

"You know he requests me to send him funds to defray his expenses, Aunt
Esther," said Ida quietly; "perhaps the lack of money will avert such a
calamity."

"What an unromantic conclusion to a love-letter!" said Gabrielle
scornfully.

The conversation turned to the depredations of the neighbors and
neighbors' children upon the property. "Mr. Greeley's place" had
always been looked upon in the light of public property, and intruders
walked and drove through the grounds quite as a matter of course, and
helped themselves freely to whatever they liked in the floral, fruit,
or vegetable line. The young ladies, however, decided that they had
submitted to such conduct quite long enough, and we sent to Sing Sing
for some printed handbills warning trespassers off the place.

Two or three days passed, and we had entirely forgotten Ida's erratic
admirer, when Gabrielle returned from a morning walk with the