Brown to your Victoria. You will need one dull and prosy squire to
arrange your pillows, so that you can laugh at Jack's jokes without
weariness, and doze quietly while Geoff and Uncle Doc are talking
medicine.

Of course the most exciting event of the week was the mysterious
disappearance and subsequent restoration of the Heir-Apparent; but I
feel sure somebody else will describe the event, because it is
uppermost in all our minds.

Bell, for instance, would dress it up in fine style. She is no
historian, but in poetry and fiction none of us can touch her;
though, by the way, Polly's abilities in that direction are a good
deal underrated. It's as good as a play to get her after Jack when
he is in one of his teasing moods. They are like flint and steel,
and if Aunt Truth didn't separate them the sparks would fly. With a
girl like Polly, you have either to lie awake nights, thinking how
you'll get the better of her, or else put on a demeanour of
gentleness and patience, which serves as a sort of lightning-rod
round which the fire of her fun will play all day and never strike.
Polly is a good deal of a girl. She seems at first to have a pretty
sharp tongue, but I tell you she has a heart in which there is
swimming-room for everybody. This may not be 'information' to you,
whom we look upon as our clairvoyant, but it would be news to most
people.

Uncle Doc, Bell, Geoff, Polly, Meg, and I started for the top of Pico
Negro the other morning. Bell rode Villikins, and Polly took a mule,
because she thought the animal would be especially sure-footed. He
was; in fact, he was so sure-footed that he didn't care to move at