an apple-tree, and the choice of the freshest fruit. Milk and cakes were
added to the fare. It was a banquet, in Sophy's eyes, worthy that happy
day. And when Lionel had finished his share of the feast, eating fast,
as spirited, impatient boys formed to push on in life and spoil their
digestion are apt to do; and while Sophy was still lingering over the
last of the strawberries, he threw himself back on his chair and drew
forth his letter. Lionel was extremely fond of his mother, but her
letters were not often those which a boy is over-eager to read.
It is not all mothers who understand what boys are,--their quick
susceptibilities, their precocious manliness, all their mystical ways
and oddities. A letter from Mrs. Haughton generally somewhat fretted
and irritated Lionel's high-strung nerves, and he had instinctively put
off the task of reading the one he held, till satisfied hunger and cool-
breathing shadows, and rest from the dusty road, had lent their soothing
aid to his undeveloped philosophy.

He broke the seal slowly; another letter was enclosed within. At the
first few words his countenance changed; he uttered a slight exclamation,
read on eagerly; then, before concluding his mother's epistle, hastily
tore open that which it had contained, ran his eye over its contents,
and, dropping both letters on the turf below, rested his face on his hand
in agitated thought. Thus ran his mother's letter:

MY DEAR BOY,--How could you! Do it slyly!! Unknown to your own mother!!
I could not believe it of you!!!! Take advantage of my confidence in
showing you the letters of your father's cousin, to write to himself--
clandestinely!--you, who I thought had such an open character, and who
ought to appreciate mine. Every one who knows me says I am a woman in
ten thousand,--not for beauty and talent (though I have had my admirers
for them too), but for GOODNESS I As a wife and mother, I may say I have