When he had finished he looked at his father. "Seal it oop, fayther, an' send it on to Doris." And then he fell back, white and exhausted with the effort he had made.
It was this letter that had made Doris so very dreamy and abstracted for the last few days.
She was not troubled by George's earnest question. "The poor, sick lad," she said to herself, no wonder he takes fancies as he lies there day after day; but I will write. Nay, nay, it's not a fancy. Any one must be i' t' right who's trying to better herself; Miss Phillimore has said so." Now and then, and especially when she was thinking of home-life, Doris would fall into the old familiar thought, and then check herself proudly for the error. She glanced at her companion, whose pure, refined enunciation had greatly impressed her, and she felt thankful she had not spoken aloud.
Meantime Rica had recovered her self- possession.
"You have no sisters, either," she said quietly. She was glad that Doris was not demonstrative, for she shrank from some of her more gushing school-fellows, but still she wished her new friend had kissed her just now, when she must have seen she was very sad.
Doris started. "No. I've only got that poor, sick brother I told you about, who is almost always lying on a sofa." "How dreadful!" and Rica's sympathetic face grew puckered in an instant.
"How glad you must be when your holidays come, to go home and amuse him! Are you good at making up stories?"
Doris laughed.
"I never made up a story in my life, unless" — she hesitated — "do you call looking forward and planning what may happen to oneself making up stories?" Rica looked curiously at her companion.
"What a strange creature you are!" Then, noticing a quick flush on her friend's delicate face, "I beg pardon. Do you mind — did I vex you? I did not mean to; I only thought that you take the same trouble and get less fun."
"I don't understand." There was pain in Doris's voice.
"Why, isn't it more amusing to make stories about people one has never seen, to make new people to think about, than to go on thinking about oneself? Of course you're a different self to me; but I've heard so much about myself in the way of scoldings, and so on, that I believe I'm rather sick of Rica Masham and all that belongs to her."
Doris thought before she answered. "It may be more amusing to do as you say, but it's not reality, Rica. How-old are you?"
" I am fifteen and a half, and you — — "
"I am just seventeen; but it seems to me I am ever so much older than you are. I dare say you'll do me good. Some day I'll tell you about myself, and why I am what you call such a strange girl."
" Tell me all this minute: you know all about me, and my father, and my mother, and my four brothers — such jolly boys! — and all I know of you is about poor sick George. When I love people I like to be able to imagine them in their home-life. Perhaps you will let me go and see you some day. I have written to my father already to ask you."
Doris blushed brightly, but this time she was evidently pleased.
"You are very kind indeed; but I stay here in the holidays; I do not even go home. Some day, if we keep friends, you shall know all about my home and everything, and then perhaps" — she made a great struggle to be frank — "you will not want to come and see me."
"Naughty Doris" — Rica's arm stole round her neck and drew her down to he kissed. "But, no, I will not go to see you; I shall go to your home on purpose to tell stories to that poor darling George."
SAMUEL WARREN
BORN, 1807 — DIED, JULY, 1877.
On the 29th July died Samuel Warren, the author of "Ten Thousand a-Year" and the "Diary of a Late Physician." Although it is now many years since any contribution from his pen appeared in the columns of this magazine, his fame is so much bound up with Blackwood that we feel sure our readers will sympathize with us in an attempt to give expression to our sorrow and our sense of loss. His place has for years stood vacant in the circle of authors, but his name is as familiar to the present generation of readers as to that which laughed and wept with him in turn, while the passages of the "Diary" and the fortunes of Tittlebat Titmouse were first passing through these pages. His family has sustained a heavy afflic-
