"I had very pretty hair, my dear," said Mist Matilda; "and not a
bad mouth." And I saw her soon afterwards adjust her cap and draw
herself up.

But to return to Mrs Jenkyns's letters. She told her husband about
the poor in the parish; what homely domestic medicines she had
administered; what kitchen physic she had sent. She had evidently
held his displeasure as a rod in pickle over the heads of all the
ne'er-do-wells. She asked for his directions about the cows and
pigs; and did not always obtain them, as I have shown before.

The kind old grandmother was dead when a little boy was born, soon
after the publication of the sermon; but there was another letter
of exhortation from the grandfather, more stringent and admonitory
than ever, now that there was a boy to be guarded from the snares
of the world. He described all the various sins into which men
might fall, until I wondered how any man ever came to a natural
death. The gallows seemed as if it must have been the termination
of the lives of most of the grandfather's friends and acquaintance;
and I was not surprised at the way in which he spoke of this life
being "a vale of tears."

It seemed curious that I should never have heard of this brother
before; but I concluded that he had died young, or else surely his
name would have been alluded to by his sisters.

By-and-by we came to packets of Miss Jenkyns's letters. These Miss
Matty did regret to burn. She said all the others had been only
interesting to those who loved the writers, and that it seemed as
if it would have hurt her to allow them to fall into the hands of