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 "Oh, all sorts of womanly accomplishments. Needle-work and piano playing and sketching in water colors."

"She writes a very good note."

"Do you claim that as a womanly accomplishment?"

"Not exclusively. But it is an accomplishment of hers."

Everything seemed to conspire to tickle John's vanity.

"The critics think she has an 'almost masculine power, I observed, casually. "Do you see anything of that in her letters?"

"Oh, no! Her letters are extremely lady-like. Don't you think so, Aunt Bessie?"

"I beg your pardon," said Aunt Bessie. "I am afraid I was not listening. I was trying to make out whether that rock was Ben. Butler or the Irish Emigrant."

"It is too good a rock for either," her niece protested. "Isn't it a shame," she continued, turning to me, "to call these splendid rocks names!"