the perpetual little disasters that will occur in so tightly managed a household (for every one knows that human nature if squeezed in at one place will burst out in another), the long expected difficulty about Alice's and Charles's matrimonial affairs has appeared upon the scene. The six months of probation having expired, Captain Lovelace had pressed for a formal engagement, and hinted at a wedding day, only to be met with contumely and dismissed with insult and mockery. He does not come here now, his place knows him no more, and the rebellious look on my sister's lovely face brings her many a bitter word and hard sneer; but outwardly, at least, she acquiesces in her lot, and says no word on the subject, good, bad, or indifferent. She is growing very thin, our pretty Alice. It might move any man's heart to see how her face pales day by day, how slender her little wrists and waist are. But papa never heeds, never looks; he lays hard burdens upon his children, and does not touch them with so much as the tip of his finger. I think we would deal him out greater mercy than he deals us.
Although I was so faithful a gooseberry to Alice, she never speaks of Charles Lovelace to me. Often I come upon her and Milly in close confabulation, and feel unreasonably vexed; for, after all, is not Milly sixteen, and old enough to understand, while I am but fourteen, and supposed to know nothing whatever on the subject of love and courtship? Ah! they don't know I have got a sweetheart too! That is a secret. I am a good deal puzzled by Miss Alice; I thought her so plucky, and good for any amount of fighting. Can she be going to "lay her down and dee" without a protest? On this point I am speedily disabused, making, in fact, a discovery so astounding and petrifying, that for a while I feel as though some one had rapped me on the head smartly and then run away, leaving me to recover as best I might.
It is on this wise. Diving under Alice and Milly's bed one day after a slippery vagrant orange, I discover the ample space beneath
