PHONNY’S LETTER. 17

 

Caroline’s instructions to her scholars. Phonny is to write a letter.

 

 

“That is not a good name,” said Phonny.

“Yes,” said Caroline, “ Bronk is a good name fora
bad boy. I am going to play that, you are a bad boy.”

“And your name,” added Caroline, turning to Malle-
ville, “ shall be—, let me see—~Eldoranda. Now re-
member.”

“Oh dear me!” said Malleville, with a sigh, “I can’t
remember such a long name,—nor speak it.”

“ But you won’t have to speak it,” said Caroline. “ No-
body has to speak their own name. All you have to do,
is, when I call you by that name to come. If I call you
Malleville, you need not pay any attention to it at all.”

“ Well,” said Malleville.

« And now, Bronk,” said Caroline, “ yow are to write,
and Eldoranda is to read. You are to write a composi-
tion.”

“Oh no,” said Phonny. “I don’t like to write a com-
position.”

“'Then it shall be a letter,” said Caroline. “ You shall
write a letter to Beechnut. We will play that your mo-
ther’s house took fire last night, and burned up, and that
you are writing to Beechnut to give an account of it, and
to tell him to come home. You must make up some way
for the house to take fire, while I am going to get a book
for Eldoranda.”

So Caroline brought a great chair up to a desk which
stood in a corner of the room, where she said her father
always wrote his letters. She put two great law books in
the chair, to make it higher for Phonny. She also gave
him a sheet of paper and a pen.

“ There,” said she, “that is where my father writes his

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