blew over my face, and I suddenly felt it seized from behind, and looking round, found that a young baker in white had laid hold of it, but only to fasten it out of my way, as he began volubly to explain in Dutch!  I couldn’t speak, so remonstrance was impossible, and I let them alone.  Soldiers, boys, women, etc.!  I could hear them recognizing the various places.  They were very polite, kept out of my line of sight, and decided that it was “Photogeraphee” like the people in Rotterdam!  When we parted, I bowed to them and they to me!!!  To-morrow we go back to Rotterdam for one night, the next day to Antwerp.

Friday night.  Michaelmas Day. Hotel Pay Bas, Rotterdam.—­Back again! and to-morrow at 8.15 a. m. we go back to dear old Antwerp.  For the solemn fact has made itself apparent, that the money will not hold out till to-morrow week, as we intended.  So we must give up our dear Captain, and come home in the Tiger!! We shall be with you D.V. on Saturday week, starting on Wednesday from Antwerp.  We have been to the Poste Restante, and got dear Mother’s letter, to my infinite delight.  I am so glad Miss Yonge likes “the Brownies.”

Your ever loving, JUDY

TO MRS. GATTY.

Sevenoaks.  January 12, 1866.

MY DEAR, DEAR MOTHER,

I do humbly beg your pardon for having written such scrappish, snappish, selfish letters!  The tide of comfort has begun to set in from Ecclesfield to my infinite delight.  So far from being vexed at your being so careful—­I earnestly hope you will never be less so.  If you had been, I should have been dead long ago.  I have no more doubt than of my present well-being.  And as it is—­taking care is so little in my line—­that if you took to ignoring one’s delicacy, or fancying it was fancy—­I know I should merely (by instinct) hold out to the last gasp of existence, and do what I could, while I could!!...

I am cheered beyond anything with these critiques on “The Brownies.”  I must tell you I have read Aunt Mary the beginning of my new story, and she likes it very much.  It will be longer than “The Brownies.” ...  I am writing most conscientiously—­it will not be a bit longer than it should be, but naturally of itself will spread into a good deal.  In fact, it is several stories together—­a Russian one among them ("Mrs. Overtheway’s Remembrances").

TO A.E.

Ecclesfield.  May 28, 1866.

I send you a song,[33] “which is not very long”—­and that is about its only merit.  I am utterly disgusted with it myself for producing nothing better....  However, here it is, and now I must explain it.

I have endeavoured to bear in mind three things—­simplicity of idea, few verses, and a musical swing.  I have constructed it so that one child’s voice may sing for the Child, another child’s voice for the Bird, and as many children as you please in the Chorus.