to every kind of discomfort and inconvenience to mar all that is beautiful and all that is pleasing.  I speak of course of the localities I have known in my three several attempts. They say it is different in other parts of the region.  But when you have plank roads and first-class hotels and all the modern conveniences, I don’t call that going into the woods and camping out.  The real thing is not very much fun except in the retrospect, when you can thank your stars that you got out alive.  For the greater part it is a snare and a delusion.  But if you still pine for the forests and streams and the free out-of-door life, I don’t wish to discourage you, and you know I never give advice.

Your affectionate cousin, F.G.

UNREFORMED SPELLING.

A little note has come to me which gives an entertaining glimpse of the average ability of a class.  “John Stubbs x his mark” is obviously “low-watermark,” but there are levels between that and high-school possibilities which we cannot often measure.  The note is written on fair white paper and had a white envelope.  The writer is American, the wife of a fisherman, and about thirty years old, though the handwriting is like that of the old ladies of our grandmothers’ time.  It is given of course, in the full sense, literatim, and is offered for the encouragement—­or the despair—­of the Spelling Reform Association.  The little touch of pathos makes one read with respect: 

June the 2. 
Dear Madam

Will you pleas to enclose the 100 dollars in an envelope, so that the little boy wont loose it:  the little dog was too years old the first of May:  and my babey too the 24 of April, they have always ben together and he is verey intelegent indead and you can learn him eneything you would wish to fealing asuared he will receve everey kindness you have the best wishes of
                    Mrs. Hattie ——.

Perhaps it is well to add, the “100” means ten.  The hero is a black Skye, long-haired, plume-tailed and soft-eyed.  What his views were upon removal from the back alley of his youth to a well-appointed though by no means luxurious home he never said, but his investigation was comically thorough, winding up in dumb amaze at the discovery of himself in a long mirror.  His experience of feminine humanity being limited to the variety that rolls its sleeves above its elbows and comports itself accordingly, he bitterly resented good clothes, transferred his affections to the housemaids, and only much coaxing and much sugar could win his heart for his new mistress.

“The little boy” had dubbed him “Penny,” which hardly suited his silken attire and his little haughty, imperious ways; so, though the children will still call him “Penny-wise” and “Four Farthings,” the mistress finds nothing less than “Pendennis” due to his dignity.—­C.B.M.

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