dearest John." Shortly afterwards they were married, I suppose,
from the intermission in their correspondence.

"We must burn them, I think," said Miss Matty, looking doubtfully
at me. "No one will care for them when I am gone." And one by one
she dropped them into the middle of the fire, watching each blaze
up, die out, and rise away, in faint, white, ghostly semblance, up
the chimney, before she gave another to the same fate. The room
was light enough now; but I, like her, was fascinated into watching
the destruction of those letters, into which the honest warmth of a
manly heart had been poured forth.

The next letter, likewise docketed by Miss Jenkyns, was endorsed,
"Letter of pious congratulation and exhortation from my venerable
grandfather to my beloved mother, on occasion of my own birth.
Also some practical remarks on the desirability of keeping warm the
extremities of infants, from my excellent grandmother."

The first part was, indeed, a severe and forcible picture of the
responsibilities of mothers, and a warning against the evils that
were in the world, and lying in ghastly wait for the little baby of
two days old. His wife did not write, said the old gentleman,
because he had forbidden it, she being indisposed with a sprained
ankle, which (he said) quite incapacitated her from holding a pen.
However, at the foot of the page was a small "T.O.," and on turning
it over, sure enough, there was a letter to "my dear, dearest
Molly," begging her, when she left her room, whatever she did, to
go UP stairs before going DOWN: and telling her to wrap her baby's
feet up in flannel, and keep it warm by the fire, although it was
summer, for babies were so tender.