unable to use her eyes. She requests me, therefore, to answer your favor
of the 22d of June. She thanks you extremely for writing, and wishes me
to say that she considers herself in every way under great obligations
to you. Your account of her son's progress and the high estimation in
which he is held has made her very happy, and she earnestly prays that
all may continue well with him. He sent us, a short time ago, several
large photographs of his two statues, taken from different points of
view. We know little about such things, but they seem to us wonderfully
beautiful. We sent them to Boston to be handsomely framed, and the man,
on returning them, wrote us that he had exhibited them for a week in
his store, and that they had attracted great attention. The frames are
magnificent, and the pictures now hang in a row on the parlor wall.
Our only quarrel with them is that they make the old papering and the
engravings look dreadfully shabby. Mr. Striker stood and looked at them
the other day full five minutes, and said, at last, that if Roderick's
head was running on such things it was no wonder he could not learn to
draw up a deed. We lead here so quiet and monotonous a life that I
am afraid I can tell you nothing that will interest you. Mrs. Hudson
requests me to say that the little more or less that may happen to us is
of small account, as we live in our thoughts and our thoughts are fixed
on her dear son. She thanks Heaven he has so good a friend. Mrs. Hudson
says that this is too short a letter, but I can say nothing more.

Yours most respectfully,

Mary Garland.

It is a question whether the reader will know why, but this letter
gave Rowland extraordinary pleasure. He liked its very brevity and
meagreness, and there seemed to him an exquisite modesty in its saying