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CHAPTER XIV.

LETTERS.

SINCE the days of the letter of which Uriah the Hittite was the bearer, and those which Jezebel sent to the elders of Jezreel, "sealed with Ahab's seal," letters and their carriers have ever excited as much apprehension as hopeful expectation in the minds of those who have received them. And the post has been looked upon since the days of Ahasuerus, when letters were written "by posts into all the king's provinces to destroy and to kill," as often as harbingers of sorrow and despair, as they have been of joy and welcome. The postman, who would bear with him the expression of Scripture which most suits his calling, would carry with him the words of the Psalmist, when speaking of the holy man he says, "He shall not be afraid of any evil tidings, because his heart standeth fast and believeth in the LORD." A fitting motto for the post bag.

The postman! curious and unconscious being, with his rapid footsteps, and his vacant and listless eye, his shoulder slightly stooping beneath his weight, his sorted packets, and his pliant finger which allots to each expectant sufferer in his district his daily share of agony or relief! What images does not the mention of his name bring to the mind, tracking his path with so many silent tongueless woes pent up in his leather bag; while the hour of his accustomed visit is looked forward to by so

many with cold hand and restless eye, by the frequent journey to the window, and the scarcely tasted and unrelished breakfast. The death of the child far away, the news of bankruptcy and shattered fortune, the hopeless effort of the friend to rescue or to save, the chilling refusal to the earnest solicitation, are borne by him with reckless indifference.

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That letter with a strange scrawling hand, beginning at the top of the left hand corner, and addressed to "Mrs. Redding, near the Crown, Brandon, Lincolnshire," is from the girl of seventeen who left her home year before well instructed in the Sunday School to take a place of "all work," which her aunt had got her fifty miles away; it opens with the quiet announcement that "her health is good, and that she hopes that that of all inquiring friends is the same;" and it goes on to tell without even a colon or an adjective of feeling, "how she has fallen from the path of virtue, been seduced, and got upon her breast the child of misfortune.'" Without note or comment she signs herself, "your unworthy daughter," and the father's heart is broken, and the mother never lifts up her head again.

And that other letter written in a clear text hand in the centre of the envelope, addressed to "Mrs. Burton, on the Cow Ground, near the Duck, Brandon, Lincolnshire," for a moment baffles expectation, as at the open cottage door the woman takes it in with conscious pride, and peering children gaze over her elbow at the rare prize. She opens it, and in the same text hand finds herself accosted as "Dear mother,-This leaves me well,

as I hope it finds you at present, thank God for it; give my love to all inquiring friends on the Cow Ground. I hope Susan will keep her place, and that Tommy will be a good boy. I dare say you wonder why you have not seen me again; I left home at four o'clock on Monday to get work at Paddington, near London, and, dear mother, I have 'listed, and we are at the depôt at the Isle of Wight; and, dear mother, as we are going out to the war in three weeks, and, dear mother, if I am killed I shan't see you and father again; I am very sorry for what I have done, but it's too late now. Your undutiful and wicked son, JOSEPH

BURTON.

"P.S.-This is written by a young man who writes all the letters for them who are no scholars in our regiment.

"P.S.-Dear mother, I left a clasped knife and a new sixpence in my Sunday coat pocket as hangs up behind the door. Dear mother, will you give the knife to Tommy, and the new sixpence to Susan. The LORD bless you, and good-bye."

"Then as how he's 'listed," said Mrs. Burton, who had

gone into the next cottage to Mrs. Wall, for Mrs. Wall to read the letter to her; and while it was being read she stood with her uncombed iron grey hair, and draggletailed gown, the picture of shiftless poverty leaning against the door, listening to it. "Then as how he's 'listed, eh?"

how there

I heard a

"Yes," said Mrs. Wall, "and they say as are few likely to come back from this war. man say last Sunday as how each Russian was possessed

of seven devils apiece, and there's no killing 'em though they've been shot three times through the head. It's an unked thing, as I think, as we've got such rulers as fights with such men; that's as I think, however."

"Ah, it be!" said Mrs. Burton as she left the cottage with the letter in her hand, for though she took it all so quietly, that woman's heart was broken, as a stone might be with a hammer. He who had gone

with all his dirt and bootless lounging was her child of misfortune and shame, born before she was married: and the very woe which she had suffered for him—the hot tears she had shed on its baby face, when an outcast from her father's home she had been obliged to seek work where she could; the battles she had fought for him when Burton had favoured his own children, and dared "her Joe" to leave the corner, had so endeared that boy to her, that though she said not a word to any body, but went straight to the wash-tub and began squeezing down the heavy masses of clothing through which the soapy water oozed, and went on talking in her own loud voice to the children in the next room, yet she went on all the time thinking of "her Joe." And, poor thing, she came down to me the next day to show me the letter, and she had a wild scheme in her mind that I should write to all the rich people in the village to try and raise a subscription to buy him out. And when I showed her how impracticable the plan was, she made no kind of demur, but simply said, "I believe you're right, sir," and made up her mind not to see her boy again in this world, as easily as you would to go out for an hour's walk, or leave off an old coat: and yet I

believe in that woman's heart there is a deep wound made which no rolling years will ever heal.

The cheerful breakfast-room of the hall was ever a scene of hospitality and comfort. The rich Turkey carpet which covered the floor; the engravings on the walls, of Lord Cornwallis's reception of the sons of Tippoo Saib, Wolfe's death, and Nelson's last words on the Victory, interspersed with graphic portraits of Shakespeare's characters, with many other articles of furniture, gave an air of comfort and cheerfulness. The urn hissed and puffed upon the table; the silver coffee-pot, at the other end, betokened the sphere of Cicely's dominion; while the chairs on either side spoke for the domestic habits of the owners of the mansion in having all their children round them at the morning meal. Prayers were just over in the adjoining room; the sickly winter sunshine streamed in through the double plate-glass windows as Cicely and her mother entered together; the former rushed to the table to seize a letter that lay upon it. For be it remembered, our letters in this chapter are of various dates, ranging from September to December.

"From the Crimea, from Leonard," cried Cicely with honest delight as she broke the seal. And the angry indignation of the tea-urn, and the silent, unreproving cooling of the silver coffee-pot, were alike disregarded, as Alice, Grace, Miss Burnet the governess, Mrs. Loraine, Maxwell, all gathered round Cicely;