for tea-parties; so the young folks had the pleasantest table under 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 understands 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 Jent their soothing aid to his undeveloped philosophy.
He broke the seal slowly; another letter was inclosed 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! As a wife and mother, I may say I have been exemplary. I had sore trials with the dear captain—and immense temptations. But he said on his death-bed, 'Jessica, you are an angel.' And I have had offers since—immense offers—but I devoted myself to my child, as you know. And what I have put up with, letting the first floor, nobody can tell; and only a widow's pension—going before a magistrate to get it paid. And to think my own child, for whom I have borne so much, should behave so cruelly to me! Clandestine! 'tis that which stabs me. Mrs. Inman found me crying, and said, 'What is the matter?—you, who are such an
