bad as, if not worse than, I was a whole year ago. I know I ought to have been a boy instead of a girl, then it would have been all right.

How can I help being unquiet and unladylike; having no love for dolls nor a taste for needlework? I never had a love for dolls, and I never shall have a taste for needlework. How can I help making large stitches when I ought to make small ones? being "slovenly, rough, and untidy," as Aunt Anne calls me, instead of prim and tidy? Oh, why am I not a boy?

I've often asked mother this question; but she says she doesn't know. I would have been such a famous companion for Bob if I had been a boy. I would have played at cricket and football with him in the holidays from morning till night (not but what I can play both games now); and in school-time I would have worked hard, for there would have been some sense in learning if I had been a boy. But what is the good of a girl studying hard? She can't have a profession; she can't go to college. At all events, father says he would not care for his daughters to be women of that sort.

but he was good

How I sometimes hate my life! Yes, it's a relief for me to say it sometimes I simply hate my life! I want to be free; I want to say, do, and think as I please, without any one interfering with me-and I can't. Even Bob's against me sometimes; to me to-day, for when Aunt Anne was finding fault with my looks, he took my part, and said he thought I was a very pretty girl, and that all his schoolfellows who had seen me said the same. I loved Bob for this. But he rather spoilt it afterwards by telling me, in

private, that he did like a girl to be a girl; and though he was wonderfully fond of me, and thought me a firstrate companion, he could not help seeing that sometimes I was a little unladylike.

It wasn't kind of Bob to say this, when he's nearly eighteen months younger than I am; and all I had done to call forth this unbrotherly remark was to sit in a tree in the orchard, reading " Alice in Wonderland." I believe Bob wanted my seat himself. Why shouldn't a lady sit in a tree if she likes? Why should she weigh every word she utters?-for that's what's expected of me. Why should she give up everything that makes her happy, in order to give pleasure to somebody else? Why should she be untruthful? Yes, I mean what I say, though it sounds very funny. Aunt Susannah is most particular in saying, "People ought always to speak the truth;" but when I say what I think, I am called "unladylike to a degree." And I can never say what I don't think to please all the aunts I've got. But the unfortunate part of it all is, that I am the eldest of the family!

Aunt Anne is very fond of comparing me to "a light set upon a hill," for she says that, as the eldest, my brothers and sisters naturally look up to me. I have only one sister and two brothers, but they are quite enough to whom to be an example. I am as sorry as Aunt Anne that they haven't a better light to guide them; but I find that sorrow does not mend matters. And if only the scapegoat of the family were not entering her teens!

There are just four of us "children of the Farm,"

as we are often called-Bob and I, Marmaduke and Winifred. Haven't the two little ones splendid names? I often think that these good names influence their manners, and make them the model children they are; but what can be expected of plain Bob and Bunchy? My real name is Caroline, or Carrie; but no one, but grandmother in London, ever gives me my real name; for when I was Winifred's age I was fat and rosy, and was said to look all clothes, and then the nickname of "Bunchy" was given to me, which has stuck to me ever since. Sometimes Bob and I are called the "mischievous B's." This is father's name for us. Bob doesn't like to be nicknamed; I don't mind it at all.

It is very funny, but the whole of our family seems to go in pairs. There's father and mother, of course; Bob and I, and we're capital friends when we do not quarrel, which is really very seldom; Marmaduke and Winifred. Marmaduke is six years old-we call him Duke for shortness, though it's very much like a dog's name and little Winny, the baby, is four. Then the aunts go in pairs, too, and so do the servants. Aunt Anne and Aunt Susannah, and Aunt Louisa and Aunt Agatha. Theirs is a rather large family, for they are all sisters; and then they're all, again, sisters to my father and his brother, Uncle Ted, who is now abroad. I can't describe all the servants, as it would take too long. There's mother's nurse and Winifred's nurse, a cook, housemaid, nursemaid, and all the dairy-maids, John and the groom, the shepherds, gardeners, carters, and heaps of farm labourers. But I know I counted them all up one day, and then they were an even number.

I sometimes think that, if I hadn't so many aunts, I shouldn't have half so many scoldings, nor half so many faults. I can't please every one, so I try to please no one, and, I must own, I don't quite please myself either.

"That girl's such a tomboy!" one aunt says-my father's sisters all live with us, and, because my mother's an invalid, they look after the family. "She's so dreadfully careless, loud, and untidy!" another remarks. "She's such a shocking example for her brothers and little sister!" a third puts in. "It's my opinion there's nothing at all to be done with her," the fourth sums up. And I don't care what any one of them thinks or says. But there is one person in this world for whom I do care, and I mind very much what she says and thinks--yes, just one, and that is my darling mother; but I see her so seldom.

She is always ill and in her own room, and the aunts try to keep me out of it as much as they can. I steal in when I can for a little time to sit by the bedside, and sometimes she sends for me. Then I am quite quiet. I could not talk much, or loudly, in dear mother's sick presence; I could not wilfully worry her; and she does not half know what a mad girl I am.

I tell her little things sometimes, for I can't keep everything from her, and when she says that I have. done wrong, I make up my mind to try to be better. I only really feel sorry for my faults when I know that they have grieved her.

Bob and I are so afraid of making mother worse by talking, that though we sometimes go into her room

together to have a chat, we sit there for half an hour without speaking six words between us.

She is very weak. I often wonder why she is so ill, and when she will get well again. I would give a good deal to see her better. I think, for mother to be well, I would always be ill myself. I often tell her so, and then she kisses me, as no one else ever kisses me, and says, "God knows best, dear Bunchy, what is good for us, and why He afflicts me. We must not question His will."

"A visit to mother's sick-room," as Bob and I always call it, quiets me wonderfully for a little; but I have such wild spirits, that when I get out again into the warm sunshine and fresh air, I forget mother is so ill-it is thoughtless of me, I know; I forget what I've to do to please her; in fact, I forget everything but the pleasure and excitement of the moment, and I'm my wild, reckless self again. And then, too, mother has been ill so long, that I am afraid we have almost grown accustomed to her illness by now.

Of all her children, little Winifred's most like mother. She is a gentle, affectionate little thing, that you cannot help petting and loving. Every one who knows mother, loves her; and Winifred has the same shaped face, the same large, violet eyes with long lashes, and the same pale look. She is a pretty little child, with a small mouth and Grecian nose-as I heard it called the other day, or I should not know a Grecian nose from a Roman-and she has a dimple on her chin, which, Aunt Anne says, is "an infallible sign of goodness." Nature forgot to give me a dimple on my chin. I think she forgot to give me a great many good things, for Aunt