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LETTER V.

CLARA STANLEY to CHARLOTTE LLOYD.

Carwood, July 20.

MY DEAR CHARLOTTE,

ALTHOUGH I am but a little girl, and cannot write such clever letters as Ellen and Louisa, mamma says she thinks you will like to hear from me; so here I am, perched up at Isabel's desk, with a pen in my hand, and a sheet of paper before me, about to write a very long letter.

I have been busy in my garden almost every day since you went, and have presented mamma with two dishes of peas from my own little garden, one of potatoes, and one of French beans, as well as with a basket of nice ripe strawberries, and some roses and mignionette to fill the flower-baskets in the hall. From this account you may suppose that I

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have not been idle; indeed, what with my French and music, and common English lessons, I have no time for that. I was employed great part of yesterday in collecting flower-seeds for mamma, that she might be able to raise other flowers from them next spring. I set to work early in the morning, and collected a paper bag full of wax-wort and sweetwilliam and speedwell before dinner after which I went to work again, and while I was getting the seed of the hawkweed, that yellow flower just by the garden gate, mamma came out and talked to me about the use of seeds. She told me that the seeds of some plants are provided with the means of wafting themselves to a distance, and that being then buried in the earth till the next spring, they produce similar plants in other places; and this accounts for the great number of thistles that

there are in the rabbit warren, for the seeds of the thistle being, like those of the hawkweed, in the shape of little arrows, tipped with a tuft of down, they are blown about by every gentle breeze, and scattered over all parts of the field. Mamma told me a great deal more that I cannot exactly remember, but enough to convince me that every part of a flower is beautiful as well as useful.

My rabbits are quite well. I fancied Flora looked rather mournful the day after you went, for when she came to eat the bran from my hand, she did not run about so much as usual. Papa says that some animals are capable of gratitude, that is, they can become fond of those who are kind to them; therefore I choose to think that our pretty Flora is grateful to my friend Charlotte, and that she would soon become fond of Clara, if she knew she was her friend. Good bye.

LETTER VI.

CAROLINE to ELLEN.

Brighton, July 24.

MY DEAR ELLEN,

I WAS very glad to receive

your letter, and much as I should have enjoyed spending the day with you at Burton Farm, yet this mode of participating in each other's pleasures certainly lessens the pain of separation.

We left Hastings last week, and had a fine hilly ride of forty-two miles along the coast to Brighton; our road sometimes lying within a few yards of the edge of the cliffs. We dined at South Bourne, about half way, and after leaving this place, as we ascended the first ridge of the Sussex South Downs, on the eastern side of which Beachy Head

is the terminating point, we gained the finest view I had ever beheld.

I think you will like to hear the result of our second visit to the fisherman's hut, among the cliffs at Hastings. My mamma accompanied us, and no sooner had she seen little Emily, than she felt as much interested about her as we had been, and so, after some consultation, it was agreed that we should take her home with us; she is a merry little creature, fair and rosy, and very fond of us already. The fisherman and his children seemed as sorry to part with her as we were glad to receive her, and, notwithstanding their extreme poverty, were very reluctant to receive any recompence for their care and attention to our little charge. Charlotte and Emmy, for by that name she is still called to distinguish her from my sister Emily, are great friends: since we came to