brown coat the delicate pink stripes bordering the white fat. Of
late years one pane of her window had been fitted up with a wooden
box, with a slit in it on the outside, and a whole region round it
taken up with printed sheets of paper about 'Mails to Gothenburg,--
Weekly Post to Vancouver's Island'--and all sorts of places to which
the Friarswood people never thought of writing.

Altogether, she throve very well; and she was a good woman, whom
every one respected for the pains she took to bring up her children
well. The eldest, Charles, had died of consumption soon after his
father, and there had been much fear for his sister Matilda; but Lady
Jane had contrived to have her taken as maid to a lady who usually
spent the winter abroad, and the warm climate had strengthened her
health. She was not often at Friarswood; but when she came she
looked and spoke like a lady--all the more so as she gave herself no
airs, but was quite simple and humble, for she was a very good right-
minded young woman, and exceedingly fond of her home and her good
mother.

Ellen would have liked to copy Matilda in everything; and as a first
step, she went for a year to a dress-maker; but just as this was
over, Alfred's illness had begun; and as he wanted constant care and
attendance, it was thought better that she should take in work at
home. Indeed Alfred was such a darling of hers, that she could not
have endured to go away and leave him so ill.

Alfred had been a most lively, joyous boy, with higher spirits than
he quite knew what to do with, all fun and good-humour, and yet very
troublesome and provoking. He and his brother Harold were the
monkeys of the school, and really seemed sometimes as if they COULD