76 A MOTHER OF FIVE.

called t0 San Francisco to meet an aunt who
had just arrived from “the States.” It was
a vacant Sunday to “the boys,” a very hol-
low, unsanctified Sunday, somehow, without
that little figure. But the next Sunday,
and the next, were still worse, and then it
was known that the dreadful aunt was mak-
ing much of Mary, and Was sending her to
a grand school——a convent at Santa Clara
—where it was rumored girls were turned
out so accomplished that their own parents
did not know them. But we knew that was
impossible to our Mary; and a letter which
came from her at the end of the month, and
before the convent had closed upon the blue
pinafore, satisfied us, and was balm to our
anxious hearts. It was characteristic of
Mary; it was addressed to nobody in par-
ticular, and would —-but for the prudence
of the aunt——have been entrusted to the
Post Office open and undirected. It was
a single sheet, handed to us without a word
by her father; but, as we passed it from
hand to hand, we understood it as if we had
heard our lost playfellow’s voice.

“Ther ’s more houses in ’Friseo than you
kin shake a stick at and wimmens till you
kant rest, but mules and jakasses ain’t get