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sister's questions, which were frequent and innumerable. Without a word of explanation he led the way home; without a word he set her down at the dining-room table with paper and ink before her, and sat down himself on the opposite side of it, a dictionary in his hand and Wiggins by his side.

Then he said coldly: "Now don't make any blots, or you'll have to do it all over again."

"I never make blots! It's you that makes blots!" cried Erebus, ruffled. "Mr. Etheridge says I write ever so much better than you do. Ever so much better."

"That's why you're writing the letter and not me," said the Terror coldly. "Fire away: 'My dear Aunt Amelia'— I say, Wiggins, what's the proper words for 'awfully keen'?"

"'Keen' is 'interested'—I don't know how many 'r's ' there are in 'interested'—and 'awfully' is an awfully difficult word," said Wiggins, pondering.

The Terror looked up " interested" in the dictionary with a laborious painfulness, and announced triumphantly that there was but a single "r" in it;