at Rotherwood, and, do you know, I very nearly did the same; for there is early Celebration at the little church just across the garden.  Kitty talked of calling for me, but I did not make sure, because I heard some one say she was not to go if she had a cold; and, when I heard the bell, I grew anxious and started off, and I lost my way, and thought I should never get to the stairs; but just as I was turning back, out came Lord and Lady Ormersfield.  He looks quite young, though he is rather lame—–­I shall like all lame people, for the sake of Geraldine—–­and Lady Ormersfield has such a motherly face.  He laughed, and said I was not the first person who had lost my way in the labyrinths of passages, so I went on with them, and after all Kitty was hunting for me!  I sat next him at breakfast, and, do you know, he asked me whether I was the sister of a little downright damsel he met at Rotherwood two years ago, and said he had used her truthfulness about the umbrella for a favourite example to his small youngest!

’When I hear of truthfulness I feel a sort of shock.  “Oh, if you knew!” I am ready to say, and I grow quite hot.  That is what I am really writing about to-day.  I never had time after that Christmas Day at Vale Leston to do more than keep you up to all the doings; but I did think:  and there were Mr. Harewood’s sermons, which had a real sting in them, and a great sweetness besides.  I have tried to set some down for you, and that is one reason I did not say more.  But to-day, after luncheon, it is very quiet, for Kitty and Constance are gone to their Sunday classes, and the gentlemen and boys are out walking, except Lord Somerville, who has a men’s class of his own, and all the old ladies are either in their rooms, or talking in pairs.  So I can tell you that I see now that I did not go on in a right spirit with Aunt Jane, and that I did poor Val harm by my example, and went very near deception, for I did not choose to believe that when you said “If Aunt J. approves,” you meant about Alexis White’s lessons; so I never told her or Kalliope, and I perceive now that it was not right towards either; for Kally was very unhappy about her not knowing.  I am very sorry; I see that I was wrong all round, and that I should have understood it before, if I had examined myself in the way Mr. Harewood dwelt upon in his last Sunday in Advent sermon, and never gone on in such a way.

’I am not going to wait for you now, but shall confess it all to Aunt Jane as soon as I go home, and try to take it as my punishment if she asks a terrible number of questions.  Perhaps I shall write it, but it would take such a quantity of explanation, and I don’t want Aunt Ada to open the letter, as she does any that come while Aunt Jane is out.

’Please kiss my words and forgive me, as you read this, dear mamma; I never guessed I was going to be so like Dolores.

’Kitty has come to my door to ask if I should like to come and read something nice and Sundayish with them in her grandmamma’s dressing-room.—–­So no more from your loving GILL.’