coming home the day before you ought to have. We did it to kid old Simpshall, because she was so beastly about us making a real battlefield. We only painted all the parts of us that show with vermilion, and put spots—mixed crimson lake and Prussian blue—all over, and we pulled down the blinds and said our heads ached, and so they did with crying—I mean the girls cried. She was afraid to come near us; but she was sorry she had been such a beast. And when she had come to the door and said so through the key-hole we owned up, but you had gone by then. It was a rare lark, but we've got three days bedder for it. I shall lower this on the end of a fishing-line to the baker's boy, and he will post it. It is like a dungeon. He is going to bring us tarts, like a faithful page.
Your affectionate bro.,
'Bertrand de Lisle Carruthers.'
The other letter was from mother.
'My darling Molly,
It was all a naughty hoax, intended to annoy poor Miss Simpshall. Your brothers and sisters had painted their faces red and purple—
