How true, dear aunt, your idea is, that in their
rank of life they should wear what is unbecoming. I must say it is
absurd, their anxiety about dress, when there are so many more important
things in this world, and in the next. I am so glad your flowered poplin
turned out so well, and that your lace was not torn. I am wearing my
yellow satin, that you so kindly gave me, at the Bishop's on Wednesday,
and think it will look all right. Would you have bows or not? Jennings
says that every one wears bows now, and that the underskirt should be
frilled. Reggie has just had another explosion, and papa has ordered the
clock to be sent to the stables. I don't think papa likes it so much as
he did at first, though he is very flattered at being sent such a pretty
and ingenious toy. It shows that people read his sermons, and profit by
them.

Papa sends his love, in which James, and Reggie, and Maria all unite,
and, hoping that Uncle Cecil's gout is better, believe me, dear aunt,
ever your affectionate niece,

JANE PERCY.

PS.--Do tell me about the bows. Jennings insists they are the
fashion.--_Lord Arthur Savile's Crime_.

THE TRIUMPH OF AMERICAN 'HUMOR'

At half-past ten he heard the family going to bed. For some time he was
disturbed by wild shrieks of laughter from the twins, who, with the light-
hearted gaiety of schoolboys, were evidently amusing themselves before
they retired to rest, but at a quarter past eleven all was still, and, as
midnight sounded, he sallied forth. The owl beat against the window
panes, the raven croaked from the old yew-tree, and the wind wandered
moaning round the house like a lost soul; but the Otis family slept
unconscious of their doom, and high above the rain and storm he could
hear the steady snoring of the Minister for the United States. He
stepped stealthily out of the wainscoting, with an evil smile on his
cruel, wrinkled mouth, and the moon hid her face in a cloud as he stole
past the great oriel window, where his own arms and those of his murdered
wife were blazoned in azure and gold. On and on he glided, like an evil
shadow, the very darkness seeming to loathe him as he passed. Once he
thought he heard something call, and stopped; but it was only the baying
of a dog from the Red Farm, and he went on, muttering strange sixteenth-
century curses, and ever and anon brandishing the rusty dagger in the
midnight air. Finally he reached the corner of the passage that led to
luckless Washington's room. For a moment he paused there, the wind
blowing his long grey locks about his head, and twisting into grotesque
and fantastic folds the nameless horror of the dead man's shroud. Then
the clock struck the quarter, and he felt the time was come. He chuckled
to himself, and turned the corner; but no sooner had he done so, than,
with a piteous wail of terror, he fell back, and hid his blanched face in
his long, bony hands. Right in front of him was standing a horrible
spectre, motionless as a carven image, and monstrous as a madman's dream!
Its head was bald and burnished; its face round, and fat, and white; and
hideous laughter seemed to have writhed its features into an eternal
grin.