preferred, so that I quickly knew the mottoes and standards of its
bewildering hosts by heart), when my father's first letter came home.
In those days, before the great canal was cut, a voyage to the East
Indies was no light matter, lying as it did around the treacherous
Cape and through seas where a ship may lie becalmed for weeks.
So it was little wonder that my father's letter, written from Bombay,
was some time on its way. Still, when the news came it was good.
He had seen Mr. Elihu Sanderson, son of the Elihu mentioned in my
grandfather's Will, had presented his parchment and Testament, and
received some notes (most of which he sent home), together with a
sealed packet, directed in Amos Trenoweth's handwriting: "To the Son
of my House, who, having Counted all the Perils, is Resolute."
This packet, my father went on to say, contained much mysterious
matter, which would keep until he and his dear wife met. He added
that, for himself, he could divine no peril, nor any cause for his
dear wife to trouble, seeing that he had but to go to the island of
Ceylon, whence, having accomplished the commands contained in the
packet, he purposed to take ship and return with all speed to
England. This was the substance of the letter, wrapped around with
many endearing words, and much tender solicitude for Margery and the
little one, as that he hoped Jasper was tackling his letters like a
real scholar, and comforting his mother's heart, with more to this
effect; which made us weep very sorrowfully when the letter was read,
although we could not well have told why. As to the sealed packet,
my father would have been doubtless more explicit had he been without
a certain distrust of letters and letter-carriers, which, amid much
faith in the miraculous powers of the Post Office, I have known to
exist among us even in these later days.

Than this blessed letter surely no written sheet was ever more read