For over and above my interest in that poor baby, several things draw me toward this associate household, and I should not like to pursue an acquaintance there if Ronayne manifested any decided contempt or hostility. He bursts out about the food-reforming trio, and the young lady-lecturer's manners are not to his fancy—too free and easy. She boasts of her superiority to hampered Englishwomen. She lives here by herself in lodgings, and has gentlemen visiting and dining with her alone, or goes alone, in full dress, to dine, at 7 or 8 o'clock, with a gentleman friend stopping at the Langham Hotel. These are American fashions—innocent permitted freedoms of our republican sisters, she says. She is a pretty little boaster, with ready wit and a sharp tongue; but there are Americans and Americans, and I hardly think it would occur to an English gentleman to stand flicking a heavy curtain-tassel playfully into Miss Hedges's face while chatting with her at a public reception, even if he were an épris Liberal, M.P.—as Ronayne says Mr. Vane did in the little orator's the other night.
But there! there! With love from each to all, not another word this time of my little New Light baby or his expansive household, from
Your own Lil.
(To be continued.)
THE CLIMBING ROSE.
Climb, oh! climb the golden ladder,
Song of mine: