CHAPTER II.
A Glance at the Ellis Family.
"I wish Charlie would come with that tea," exclaimed Mrs.Ellis, who sat finishing off some work, which had to go home that evening.

"I wonder what can keep him so long away.

He has been gone over an hour; it surely cannot take him that time to go to Watson's." "It is a great distance, mother," said Esther Ellis, who was busily plying her needle; "and I don't think he has been quite so long as you suppose." "Yes; he has been gone a good hour," repeated Mrs.Ellis.

"It is now six o'clock, and it wanted three minutes to five when he left.

I do hope he won't forget that I told him half black and half green--he is so forgetful!" And Mrs.Ellis rubbed her spectacles and looked peevishly out of the window as she concluded.--"Where can he be ?" she resumed, looking in the direction in which he might be expected.