easy, feminine banter, which amused me in spite of myself. Miss
Jessie, according to her own account, was hesitating, on receipt
of my letter, between two alternatives--the one, of allowing
herself to be buried six weeks in The Glen Tower; the other, of
breaking the condition, giving up the money, and remaining
magnanimously contented with nothing but a life-interest in her
father's property. At present she inclined decidedly toward
giving up the money and escaping the clutches of "the three
horrid old men;" but she would let me know again if she happened
to change her mind. And so, with best love, she would beg to
remain always affectionately mine, as long as she was well out of
my reach.

The summer passed, the autumn came, and I never heard from her
again. Under ordinary circumstances, this long silence might have
made me feel a little uneasy. But news reached me about this time
from the Crimea that my son was wounded--not dangerously, thank
God, but still severely enough to be la id up--and all my
anxieties were now centered in that direction. By the beginning
of September, however, I got better accounts of him, and my mind
was made easy enough to let me think of Jessie again. Just as I
was considering the necessity of writing once more to my
refractory ward, a second letter arrived from her. She had
returned at last from abroad, had suddenly changed her mind,
suddenly grown sick of society, suddenly become enamored of the
pleasures of retirement, and suddenly found out that the three
horrid old men were three dear old men, and that six weeks'
solitude at The Glen Tower was the luxury, of all others, that
she languished for most. As a necessary result of this altered
state of things, she would therefore now propose to spend her